


Hey, Somebody's on the Roof

by peggywrites



Category: Beetlejuice - All Media Types, Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Death, Drowning, Hurt/Comfort, Suicide mention, apologizing for past mistakes, beetlands, beetlejuice is a sad puppy, implied beetlands, not beetlebabes, post-musical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:40:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 47,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22696504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peggywrites/pseuds/peggywrites
Summary: Lydia Deetz goes to the roof of her house to get some fresh air. Beetlejuice, who she has not seen in months, gets the wrong idea.
Relationships: Beetlejuice & Lydia Deetz
Comments: 226
Kudos: 820





	1. Hey, Somebody's on the Roof

When they were learning about color theory, Lydia’s teacher told them that if they were looking at their art for too long, it was a good idea to step away and stare at a blank wall. Lydia found herself doing that often. Even with the house decorated as it was, there was always a blank wall she could go stare at when her eyes and her mind needed a break.

Though today, Lydia thought about staring at something else.

Making her way up the stairs and into the attic, Lydia stopped a moment to say hello to the Maitlands and see how their miniature town model was coming. The two were currently working out the graveyard, and for a moment, Lydia wondered if she should offer them that piece of advice. Did ghosts need breaks?

“I’m gonna go on the roof. Gonna watch the sunset.” Lydia stated with a smile, patting the wooden table to get the ghosts’ attention.

“Be careful.” Adam said, taking his eyes away from the model for a moment. “It hasn’t rained in a bit, but try to stay behind the railing. I don’t want you to slip.”

“Okay, _Daaaaad_.” Lydia mock groaned, but couldn’t help smile herself when she saw the edges of Adam’s mouth curl up a bit. She moved passed Barbra and opened the window, closing it behind her after she stepped out onto the tiles.

This really was the best view in the world, especially at sundown. Today had been incredibly cloudy (Lydia’s favorite kind of weather, so she didn’t complain), which made the sunlight turn pink and orange as it went below the horizon. Lydia didn’t have her camera on her, but she decided to capture the moment anyway with her phone. The photo wouldn’t look as detailed, but it would still look nice if she wanted to show anyone.

Slipping the phone back into her pocket, Lydia edged her way closer to the railing of the roof. The spikes there would prevent her from falling down (and impaling herself on the birdbath) if she happened to slip. Though she had no intention of doing anything that stupid. Lydia took in a deep breath from her nose, taking a very big stretch. She pushed herself up on her tiptoes and lifted out her arms to the side, trying to stretch out all the kinks that had formed from sitting at her desk.

Then something – very _unusual_ happened.

There was a gasp behind her. Then the sound of running feet on tile. And a voice going “ _Wait, wait, wait!_ No! Lyds, don’t!” It was one she recognized, though one she somewhat doubted she’d never hear again. Quite suddenly, her wrist was grabbed and she was forcefully yanked away from the edge of the roof. Lydia let out a yelp as she was spun around.

Then, standing between her and the edge, with both hands on her arms and a very worried expression, purple hair and all, was Beetlejuice.

“Lydia! What are you doing!? You can’t just do that! Not after everything you – _we_ went through! I didn’t stand up to my mom, _which was very hard by the way I did not think I could do that,_ just for you to chuck yourself off the roof a few months later! Oh my God! You’re gonna give me a heart attack! And I don’t even have a heart anymore!”

Lydia blinked, absolutely dumbfounded. It took her a second to find her voice. “Beetlejuice?”

“No, Betty White, of course it’s me!” said the demon, frowning in a way that one of his fangs stuck above his lip.

“Why are you … on my roof?”

“I think the more pressing question is why are _YOU_ on your roof?” Beetlejuice asked her, still clutching tightly to her arms. “Because uh, if memory serves, last time you were on the roof you were dead set, pun intended, on jumping off.”

“And last time your hair was purple and _you_ were on the roof you were super depressed.” Lydia pointed out, raising a finger to point up at his head.

“Yeah, Lyds, because the roof is a perfect moping spot. That’s the only reason anyone goes on the roof.”

“No, it isn’t. I came out here to look at the sunset.” Lydia explained, tapping the bottom of Beetlejuice’s forearms with her hands. The demon blinked, looking like he had never even considered that as a possibility.

“You … didn’t come to the roof to … you know.” He asked, a little bit softer.

“No.” Man, she must’ve really scared him for him to act like this, or show up at all, really. “I promise.”

“Oh.” Beetlejuice’s hands left her arms and immediately he started to wiggle his fingers in the air, as if they were drumming on a countertop. “Right, uh –“ The demon he tapped his wrists against his hips for a moment, then went to straitening his suit. Collar, lapel, sleeves, cuffs, and lastly his tie. “Cool. Glad we got that cleared up.”

“Well, no note, so.” Lydia clasped her hands together, suddenly realizing the awkwardness of the situation as well. The two hadn’t seen each other in months. Or, she hadn’t seen him. The idea of that made her chest feel tight. Being seen was what Beetlejuice wanted most. Was he avoiding them? If so, why sit on the roof? “So, what happened to ‘Dolly will never come this way again’?”

“Dramatic exit, kid. Just as effective as dramatic entrances.” Beetlejuice said, nonchalantly, giving a small shrug.

“So, you couldn’t stay away?” Lydia said with a teasing smile.

“Not when you’re harboring the two hottest ghosts this side of the River Styx.”

“Ew, gross.”

“Can’t help it.” Beetlejuice winked, his hair slowly turning green at the edges. “They turn me on.” He lifted a land in the air, closed it and pulled down with a _click_. Appearing next to him was a small, lit lightbulb.

The girl blinked with a tilt of her head. Giving a very pondering look as she looked above the demon.

“What? What color?” he asked, the hand reaching to run through his bush-like hair, seeming to guess what she was looking at.

“It’s going back to green.” She answered. Lydia paused for a minute, trying to pick her words right. “I missed you.”

Beetlejuice suddenly crossed his arms over his chest. Lydia knew enough about body language to know it was him showing he was closing himself off.

“Yeah, well, who wouldn’t?” The demon laughed, more like giggled, and pushed his chin into his chest. He took a moment to pause. “Actually, I’m pretty sure no one else in there does, but … thanks. I was a pretty lousy BFFFF.”

“No, it’s okay, I was too.” Lydia admits, wishing she could say something that made the situation a little bit better. “I um, was hurting and you know, I made a couple of bad decisions, said some mean things.”

“Eh, we all do.” Beetlejuice looked away, not at anything in particular, just not at Lydia. “I was too.” He admits without wanting to repeat. “That whole séance thing was kind of … uncool.”

Lydia didn’t know if he was referring to her part of the séance (where she literally jumped into Hell to get away from him), his part (where he tricked her into almost killing Barbra), or both.

“Let’s agree that the bait and switches weren’t okay for either of us.” Lydia said with a helpful smile. Beetlejuice grumbled, but he nodded. There was a long, awkward pause from both of them before she spoke up. “What do we do now?”

“I dunno, when I thought about this, I never really thought passed everyone getting so mad at me I get chased out with a broom.” Beetlejuice admitted.

“You thought about apologizing?”

“I never said I was sorry.” The demon said, squeezing his arms around himself tighter. And it was true, it never actually said the words. (Then again, neither had she.) He just pointed out the things he did were definitely not cool.

“Right.” Lydia gave him a knowing smirk. “Do you want to come in?” She offered, gesturing towards the window.

Beetlejuice looked over her shoulder to the house that had been his for about less than a week. It had been nice, at least when he got it all decorated to reflect himself. Lydia had liked the personal touches he made. The helpful smile that was on her face began to fade as she saw the tips of his hair grow back to a deep purple. She turned to look inside, realizing that Adam and Barbra were passing in front of the window as they busied themselves. 

“I don’t think … that’s a good idea right now.” Beetlejuice said in a soft kind of voice she hadn’t heard from him. His shoulders slacked as he unfolded his arms and slipped his hands into his pant pockets.

“Okay. You don’t have to.” Lydia said, fighting back the urge to give the demon (now looking more like some kind of kicked puppy) a hug. “If you want to stick around, I can come up and visit you sometimes?” She said, gesturing to the roof.

Beetlejuice huffed out a laugh, bringing a hand up in a lazy peace sign. “Hell yeah, you can chill at my crib anytime.”

“I have to get back to homework, but I’ll _see_ you soon, okay?” Lydia tilted her head, trying to catch Beetlejuice’s downward gaze. It took him a while to look at her and respond.

“Yeah. I like the sound of that. _See you soon_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo! My first drabble here! I wanted to make my take on how Beej comes back into Lydia's life, so I hope y'all liked it!


	2. Two Somebodies on the Roof

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia and Beetlejuice meet again on the roof. Lydia asked him for some help with her homework.

After their first, very awkward meeting, Lydia began to visit Beetlejuice more often. She always showed up on the roof sometime after three o’clock pm. Beetlejuice watched her from above as she road her bike back home from school and patiently waited until she would show up. She told him that she would visit whenever she needed a break from or finished her homework.

Sometimes it would take her a few hours after getting home to come up to the roof. She had a lot of homework, it turned out. But Beetlejuice had waited millennia for someone, anyone to see him, he could wait a few extra hours. Though, he couldn’t help but feel a little bit sorry for her whenever it seemed her backpack was overflowing with schoolwork.

He still jumps whenever the window creaks open. He’s getting more and more – not afraid, because demons aren’t afraid of anything except their mothers – weary that Adam and Barbara might get suspicious of why Lydia was spending so much time on the roof, and decide to check it out themselves. Confrontation was not something Beetlejuice was looking forward two with the married couple. In fact, he would be happy if he didn’t see their scrunched up angry faces at all.

They were both cute when they were mad, but not when it was at him.

He could always disappear if either of the ghost hosts decided to venture onto the roof, but if they saw him once, they’d most likely never let Lydia talk to him again. And that was something Beetlejuice definitely didn’t want.

Though, it’s only been Lydia that steps out of the window, and today was just the same. She shut the window behind her, like always, and carefully stepped over the tiles, her large camera bouncing on her chest as she made her way over to sit next to the demon.

“Hi, Beej.” She said with a closed mouthed smile as she placed a notebook on her lap.

“Hey, kiddo. How was jail today?” Beetlejuice grinned, snapping his fingers into a finger gun.

“Eh, same as always.” Lydia shrugged, turning her head over to him. Though she didn’t look in his eyes, instead she looked above them, and her brow furrowed with what Beetlejuice could only call worry.

“What?” He leaned back slightly, one of his own furry brows raising in confusion. “What is it? Is my hair purple again?” And instantly, his hand went to the top of his head.

“Not purple. It’s more of a violet.”

Of course she would think there’s a difference between the two colors. She was too into art and colors and what they meant if you asked him.

“What the Hell is the difference?” Beetlejuice asked with a bit of a huff.

“Violet is more blue.”

“ _Daba dee daba die_.” Responded the demon with a snicker as he turned his gaze back forward.

“Purple meant you were sad.” She continued, ignoring his joke. “Violet must mean it’s deeper than that. What were you thinking about before I got here?”

The Maitlands, Beetlejuice thought with a silent sigh. The fact that there was no way the two would forgive him for the stunts he pulled. But the demon couldn’t say something like that, not to Lydia, God/Satan knows she’d try to make him talk about his feelings. Demons didn’t talk about their feelings, they just lashed out and hurt people.

“I don’t want to monologue. No one likes writing or reading that many words.” Beetlejuice said with a shrug.

“What?”

The demon simply waved his hand in the air, hopefully showing Lydia that he did not want to talk about it. And really, _who wanted to read something that would take up half the page?_

Lydia rolled her eyes, pulling her legs close to her so she could sit criss-cross. Good. The kid took the hint. She opened the notebook in her lap and gently tapped her pencil against the paper in thought.

“Hey, I thought you came up here to take a break from homework.” Beetlejuice said, a bit offended that she was impeding on their time with something stupid like that.

“I’m not, well, not really. I actually wanted to ask for your help with something.” Lydia said, looking up to meet his eyes.

Beetlejuice, absolutely delighted, placed a hand on his chest and gasped in air he did not need. “ ** _Me??_ **You want **_ME_** to help you? With homework? Hell yeah, babes! What’s it about?” He quickly scooted closer to her with a big toothy grin. 

“How old are you?”

“A demon never tells.” His sharp hand returns to his chest as he tilted his nose in the air like some snobby old woman.

“Come on.” Lydia’s face scrunched up. “You said something about the Black Plague once, didn’t you? I just want to ask you some questions to help me with this worksheet.”

“Don’t you got books for that kinda thing? Why do ya need my opinion with it?”

“ _Uuuuh_ , ‘cuz you were _there?_ ” Lydia said as if it were an obvious thought. _As if he were stupid for thinking differently._

Beetlejuice blinked to get rid of that thought. They were doing fine. She didn’t think he was stupid. She knew how scary smart he could be anyway, that’s why she was asking him for help with this.

“Yeah, yeah, okay.” The demon fake groaned, as if it were the worst thing ever. “Throw questions at me, kiddo. I’ll do my best. But know this. I will answer in extremely gross detail about literally everything.”

“Sweet! That’s exactly what I want to hear.”

The next half an hour or so was filled with Lydia reading off questions from the worksheet she was given for her history class. Beetlejuice couldn’t answer questions about exact dates, except for when the whole, nasty party started, but he answered almost every question about the effects of the Plague and exactly what it did to a person when they were infected. This he went into great detail, and Lydia ate up every word as she scribbled it down onto her notebook.

“Dang. I wish I could’ve seen something as gross as that.” She breathed dreamily, holding the notebook to her chest.

“You can, just take a look at my face, kiddo!” Beetlejuice giggled, his laugh still not as energetic as it used to be months back.

“Lydia?” A soft, kind voice came from the window as it opened. And Beetlejuice caught the sight of beautiful, flowing blonde hair before he gasped and shrunk down next to Lydia. Barbara! _No, no, no!_ What if she saw him?! Without a word, Beetlejuice snapped his fingers and took the form of an actual beetle, hopefully blending in with the tiles.

“Who are you talking to?” Barbara asked curiously, amusement more in her voice than suspicion.

“Me? Uuuh …” Lydia looked down at the beetle, and he did his best to shake his head at her. “I was just … talking to my mom. It’s been a while, ya know.” The girl gave a shrug.

“Aaw, Lydia.” Beetlejuice couldn’t see her over his friend, but he could tell Barbara was smiling. And it was probably the nicest, kindest smile in the whole world. “Okay, sweetie. Well, Delia said dinner was going to be soon, so why don’t you pack it up out here and start coming in, okay?”

“Okay, Barb. Let me just finish things up with Mom and I’ll be right in.” Lydia answered with a nod, and soon the window was shut once more. “She’s gone, Beej.”

“Uuuughhhh, that was the woooooorst.” Beetlejuice poofed back to his regular self, placing both hands on his back and pushing it forward to crack it. “I hate being inside out like that. Does not do good things for my back.”

“Why didn’t you let Barb see you?” Lydia asked with a tilt of her head.

Beetlejuice blinked. Then he narrowed his eyes, not with anger, but with uncertainty. “Because she doesn’t want to see me. None of them do.”

“How do you know?”

“Oh, please. Don’t start with that.” Beetlejuice huffed, plopping his chin on his hands. “Don’t think she’d be too jazzed about seein’ the guy that almost got her killed forever.”

“Beetlejuice …”  
  
“Ah – ah – ah!” He held up a palm to stop her. “Besides, you, my dear sweet daughter!” He placed his hands together and put on some kind of British, motherly voice, now realizing he had no idea what Lydia’s mom actually sounded like. “It’s time for you to head in for dinner. Don’t forget to wash up!”

“C’mon, Beej.”

“Go on, kid.” He dropped the voice, giving her an unamused look.

The girl paused for a moment before standing up and brushing off her dress. “Okay, okay. You don’t want to talk about it. I won’t force you.” He lifted a brow at this as he watched Lydia make her way to the window.

“See you later?” She smiled.

“Yeah, see you later, kiddo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys wanted more! I'm SO happy you liked the first drabble I did for them. I don't have a clear direction for this yet, so I'm making it up as I go for now. Hope you enjoy!


	3. Dinner with the Deetzes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia brings up Beetlejuice at dinner to see how her family feels about the demon even after all these months.

After shutting the window to the attic, Lydia made her way back to her room to set down her notebook and camera back onto her work desk. If there was one thing she liked about her new house (though the list was growing everyday), it would be the size of her new room.  
  
Adam and Barbara said that they would’ve turned the extra room into a nursery ... _eventually_ , but they were always putting it off for other projects. It was more of a storage room than anything else when the Deetzes first arrived. It was bigger than Lydia’s old room in New York, so she liked it a great deal.   
  
The teenager had made a few more adjustments to her room after the events a couple of months ago. Not only was there elements from her home in New York, but there was also black and white stripes littered around. A pillow case, a sketch book cover, pieces of fabric she was using for an art project. Lydia didn’t know she had made the design choices unconsciously. Beetlejuice was still influencing her life even after he had, quoted “left.”   
  
Lydia wondered if the subtle splashes of black and white would increase with her visits to the roof.  
  
She shrugged to herself at the thought before making her way down the stairs and towards the kitchen.   
  
Charles was setting the last of the plates on the table as Delia busied herself by the stove. Lydia gave her father a small wave before sitting down at her chair. Her father and Delia switched who cooked and who cleaned during the week, much like he and her mother used to do. Whenever Delia cooked, it was usually some vegan recipe. Today’s was a kind of taco with a substitute for meat that she could only assume was tofu.  
  
But lucky for them, Delia was a pretty decent cook, and even better with Adam helping her out. While the two ghosts didn’t need to eat anymore, they still liked helping out in the kitchen with meals and deserts, and occasionally ate every now and then. And the two always sat at the table for dinner.  
  
Lydia looked around at this mismatched family of a Dad, a Step Mom, a goth teenager, and two ghosts around the table. She wondered briefly if a certain demon would ever be able to fit into the mix.  
  
“Okay, how are they? And be honest! There’s no point of making food that you won’t like.” Delia said with a finger raised in the air after serving everyone.  
  
Lydia and Charles took bites in unison, and it actually wasn’t that bad. Lydia gave her step mom a thumbs up as Charles placed a hand on his fiancé’s shoulder.  
  
“It tastes wonderful, as always.” He said with a smile, and that only made Delia’s face shine brighter than some of her crystal lamps.  
  
Dinner conversation was mostly held between Adam and Barbara as the Deetzes ate. The two ghosts discussed things they would need for their town model, and decided they would put a list of things for Lydia to pick up one day after school. The Maitlands had money stashed away in the basement and thankfully, Charles was able to gain access to their old bank account (with their permission). Since the two couldn’t leave the house, the Deetzes often ran shopping trips for them.  
  
“So, Lydia.” Charles spoke up. “You’ve been going on the roof lately. Is it safe up there? We haven’t retiled since we moved in, and I just want to make sure it’s stable up there.”  
  
Just like her dad to be always worrying.  
  
“Oh yeah. Not a loose tile in sight. Adam did a pretty good job of it.” Lydia said with a smile towards the ghost, who adjusted his collar with pride. “It’s just really nice up there. I’m thinking about doing a series of photos with the sunset every night.”  
  
“Ooh! That sounds lovely! Maybe we could make them into an album?” Delia added with enthusiasm.   
  
“Plus, it’s nice to go up there when I need a break from homework and just talk.” Lydia said casually before she could stop herself.  
  
“Talk?” Charles asked.  
  
Lydia quickly took a big bite of her taco to keep herself from answering the question.  
  
“Lydia said she was talking to her mother.” Barbara interjected with a soft smile of understanding towards the teenager.  
  
“Oh.” Her father let out a relieved sigh, the edges of his lips curling up at the thought of his late wife. After somewhat of a longer pause, he spoke up again. “What were you talking about with her today?”   
  
Any other time, Lydia would’ve been thrilled that her father was talking about her dead mom, but now? Now she actually had to come up with some kind of story. It was a good thing she had an A in creative writing. Though her mind swam a bit, trying to figure out a good enough topic.  
  
“I was actually telling her about Beetlejuice.” There. Not completely a lie, but it did bring a sour expression to her dad’s face.  
  
“I don’t think your mother would be entirely thrilled to hear about that ... _thing_.” Charles stayed, his brow’s creasing.  
  
“Are you kidding?” Lydia laughed a bit, glancing over at the Maitlands, who were doing their best to avoid eye contact. “Mom **_loves_** weird stuff like that. She would’ve totally liked him.”  
  
“I doubt she’d like the part where he tried to kill us. _Several times_ I might add.”  
  
“He saved me from his mom, Dad. I’d say that was pretty heroic.” Lydia stated, scrunching up her nose a bit.   
  
“Yes, yes, I know. I’m just glad that demon is in that Netherworld place. _Hopefully he gets lost in that void_.” Charles grumbled, taking another bite of his food.  
  
Lydia sighed. _Beetlejuice wasn’t as far away as they thought_. Her dad certainly was a tough nut to crack, especially if she ever wanted to tell them that Beetlejuice on the roof. But it was their little secret, and Lydia didn’t plan on breaking it anytime soon. And with the way her father still regarded the demon, it probably wasn’t the best time to reveal that bit of information.   
  
“Hey, you guys knew Beej for longer, right?” She turned to the Maitlands. “What did you think of him?”  
  
“Oh, well. It didn’t seem like it was for very long. He was ...” Barbara looked at her husband, placing a lean finger on her chin as she thought. “Very _excited_ to meet us, I suppose.”  
  
“He was _enthusiastic_.” Adam added with a bit of a shrug.   
  
“And _clingy_.”  
  
“And _touchy_.”  
  
“And he made crude jokes.”  
  
“And he was **_very_** emotionally unstable. I still hope he found a dead therapist to help him through whatever he was going through.” Adam signed, pushing up his glasses.   
  
Lydia leaned back in her chair. Beetlejuice was the first person she felt really got her when she moved here. She was alone, and frightened, and she felt like no one could see here. But he made things better. He made he happy again. Not to mention, he saved her life. He saved her life _twice_ actually, now that she thought about it.  
  
“But, he was trying to use us for selfish reasons.” Barbara placed a hand on Lydia’s shoulder, as if she could see the thoughts running through her mind. “The only reason he wanted to talk to us was to for us to get you to say his name.”  
  
Lydia wasn’t so sure about that. The Beetlejuice she knew just wanted a friend. He just wanted a home to live in. Actually **_live_** in. And she ruined it. Twice.  
  
“Yeah, I guess.” But she decided to play along for now. There was no reason in trying to argue at this moment. Lydia leaned back forward to finish the rest of her dinner.   
  
She needed to think up a plan. A kind of mission for herself.  
  
One: convince her family that Beetlejuice wasn’t all that bad. That there were parts of him that were fun, and goofy, and silly..  
  
Two: convince Beetlejuice to get off the roof and into the house. And maybe get him to open up about his feelings a bit more.   
  
And Three: hopefully find a way that this mix-matched family could coexist in one house. They still had a guest room, maybe Lydia could convince her father to let Beetlejuice stay there?  
  
It would take some time and some careful planning, but she was a Deetz, she would figure it out in no time.  
  
....  
  
_Hopefully._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick little chapter to help me figure out how to write the rest of the Deetzes & the Maitlands! More to come! I've got some more chapters swimming in my brain as well as ideas of where this fic can go! Hope y'all will stick with me through it! 
> 
> I love your comments, by the way, y'all are absolute sweeties.


	4. For We Do Not Walk Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beetlejuice hops down the roof to follow Lydia to school

Beetlejuice was coming to realize that he didn’t like not talking to Lydia until she got home from school. Time worked fast for the dead, so he technically could just blink and have it be past 3 o’clock, but the demon was starting to get bored. 

He would lean against the roof of the house, ear up to the wall so he could hear whatever the Maitlands were doing. He could go invisible and enter the house and spy on them like he used to, but there was still a part of him that felt weary about entering the house that was once his. It had been nice having a place to himself. Beetlejuice normally slept where he could; benches, trees, garbage cans, in the beds of strangers after one-night stands were common, but he never had a place to call his own. Maybe that’s why he liked the house so much.

Maybe that’s why he didn’t feel comfortable entering it now?

So Beetlejuice would listen to the Maitlands, pressing his cheek against the cool tiles as they busied themselves. Sometimes he got brave enough to peak through the window. The two ghosts were so distracted by their work, it’s doubtful that they would even notice him. They would dash this way and that around the attic, sometimes they would get extremely talkative, other times they would be quiet as mice. They were working on some green thing with houses, and Beetlejuice could spot a small version of their house up on a hill. Must’ve been some kind of model. Which was totally stupid and lame and not at all cute in any kind of way.

Another thing that definitely wasn’t cute was the times Barbara and Adam would pass each other. They would give the other a peck on the cheek or sometimes a brush on the shoulder. It was a stupid kind of love ritual that Beetlejuice didn’t understand.

The worst was when Adam would put on an old record player, probably another antique he restored, and let the music carry him over to Barbara. Depending on the music, the two would waltz slowly or swing quickly. Laughing and giggling all the while. Like their lives were so perfect.

Perfect without him ruining it.

So yeah.

Beetlejuice was getting tired of listening to that all day without talking to Lydia first.

So one morning when Lydia left for school on her bike, Beeltejuice hopped down off the roof and floated after her. It didn’t take him too long to catch up, and he placed his chin on his hands, grinning while he got close enough to her before going:

“Hi!”

“ _Agah!_ ” Lydia let out a small yelp, twisting the bars of her bike in a way that almost had the contents of the basket falling to the ground. She stopped herself in time, planting a foot on the ground to halt before looking up at the demon. “Beetlejuice?!”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.” He said with a cheeky grin.

“Why are you – how are you off the roof? I thought you couldn’t leave the house. What about the sandworms?” Lydia asked with a curious tilt of her head.

“ _ **Couldn’t**_ bein’ the key word there, kiddo. When you summoned me way back then, it was inside the house. But once I got back to the Netherworld and more specifically, **_out_** of the Netherworld. I can come and go as I please.” He informed, floating around the girl with his hands behind his head.

Lydia looked strangely thoughtful for a moment, but gave the demon a smile. “Oh, well, that’s good to know, I guess. Can anyone else see you?”

“Judging by the looks you’re getting, I’d say you look like you’re talking to yourself.”

Lydia quickly spun around, a few other people making their daily commute were giving her odd, and slightly concerned, looks. The girl dug into her basket, pulling out her phone and a pair of headphones and plugged them into her ears.

“There, now it looks like I’m talking on the phone.” She said with a satisfied nod. “I guess you’re gonna follow me to school, then?” Without waiting for an answer, or maybe knowing it either way, Lydia once again set out on the trail to get to school.

“Yeah well, what would a creepy old guy be without some stalking in there?” Beetlejuice shrugged, floating to keep up with the girl. “Plus, I wanted to see what a day in the life of Lydia Deetz was like.”

“It’s just pretty much bike, go to school, bike back home, do homework, and then talk to the hobo that lives on my roof.”

“Ah hahaha, very funny.” Beetlejuice scrunched up his nose at her words but kept his voice in a teasing tone.

The two continued their way through the town before making it to an open, concrete bridge that created a – well bridge – between two sides of a river. Lydia stopped in the middle, taking her camera out from the basket and holding it to her eyes. The demon didn’t follow her gaze at first, instead, he carefully glanced over the side of the bridge and down to the water below. It was rushing, not very quickly, but fast enough to make someone nervous.

_Not that he was nervous. Demon’s didn’t get nervous._

“You okay?” Lydia asked, because of course she would notice his.

“What?” Beetlejuice lifted his head, returning a hand to his cheek.

“Your hair’s kinda making you look sick. It’s not normal green, it’s like seasick green.”

“Yeah, well, I just don’t like water.” He shrugged and kept talking before Lydia could ask anything else. “What are you talking a picture of anyways?”

“There’s an old cover bridge down the way that they closed for construction a while ago.” Lydia said, pointing to where the sun was rising. “It looks really creepy when the sun comes up, so I like taking pictures of it every day.”

“Why every day?”

“The clouds are always changing.”

“Oh.” Beetlejuice took one final glance at the cover bridge before following after Lydia again. The two continued their small conversation before finally pulling up to Lydia’s high school. It didn’t look as prison like as the demon thought it would, but it didn’t look like some magical castle either. It just looked kinda old.

“Alright. You can’t follow me inside.” Lydia started, securing her bike to a bike stand. Beetlejuice was going to protest, but she held her finger up. “I gotta concentrate and can’t get distracted. It was nice talking to you though. Why don’t you go hang out in town or … I don’t know, dig through a garbage can or something?”

“Fine, fine. I’ll find a way to distract myself.” Beetlejuice’s shoulders slumped as he placed his hands in his pockets. The girl smiled up at him and pretended to hit a button on her phone before gathering up her bag and running into the building.

Now he could’ve walked around and seen what boring stuff this small town had to offer, but Beetlejuice decided to do a quick time skip by sleeping up in the tree above the bike stands. Like he said, time moves differently when you’re dead, so he scampered up onto a branched and kicked back against the trunk of the tree. It would be 3 o’clock in no time. And he closed his eyes with a great big yawn.

Time must’ve passed, because Beetlejuice woke up when water splashed against his nose. He scrunched up his face as another hit is eyes, then the top of his head. Soon water droplets were falling everywhere. Oh, great. It was raining.

Beetlejuice hopped down the tree as the water rushed past his ears. Terrible sound. Awful sound. He placed both hands over his ears as he looked towards the school. He wondered for a moment if he should head back home – back to **_her_ _home_** instead of waiting for her, but a bell rang, and soon teenagers came piling out of the front doors.

He spotted Lydia as she ran towards her bike, shifting a small umbrella in her grasp as she tried to work at the lock. Beetlejuice walked over, leaning down and carefully took the umbrella from her hands. It looked like a two-handed job. And he gave her a smile as she looked up at him.

“Don’t worry, it’s rainy enough that no one will notice.” He told her.

“Thanks, I appreciate it.” Lydia smiled, slipping the lock into her backpack and moving with Beetlejuice over to the basket. “Hey! Wanna play a fun game?”

“In the rain?”

“Yeah, my mom and I used to play it all the time. It’s called ‘Running from a Murderer.’”

“Your mom was a weird adult.”

“And I’m a weird kid.” Lydia stated with a proud stance.

“Alright, enlighten me. How do you even play?”

“Well, we usually just used our imaginations. Mom would run to the house and pretend she forgot her keys, then she would freak out as if we were being chased by a murderer.” Lydia explained with a fond smile. “I just thought it would be fun if you were actually chasing me.”

“You want me to torment you?”

“Not actually, Beetlejuice. We’re just playing a game.” She gently tapped his shoulder with her fist.

Beetlejuice took a small step away, a bit uncomfortable, but smiled instead of letting it show. “Sure thing, kiddo.” By the sound of it, she hadn’t played this game since her mom passed away. It was the least he could do since she was talking to him.

“Alright!” Lydia took the umbrella from Beetlejuice’s hands and placed it within the bike basket, so it covered her bag and schoolbooks. “I GET A HEAD START ONE TWO THREE GO!” And after kicking up her feet, she sped down the hill towards the off-town path they had taken before.

Beetlejuice rolled his eyes. She was the sneaky trick like always. But the demon mimed pulling up his sleeves and slicked back his soaked, mop of hair and glided after Lydia. What kind of murderer did he want to be? Sly and slick? Creepy? Silly? He caught up to Lydia as she peddled and moved in front of her (but off to the side so she wouldn’t run into him).

 _“Hello, little girl!”_ Beetlejuice cackled in a voice like his own, but much higher in pitch. Creepy and Silly was always a good mix to go for. Lydia did a very exaggerated yelp and zoomed passed him.

“OH! NO! I’VE GOTTA GET HOME!” The girl yelled above the rain. Beetlejuice chased after her, calling and throwing his voice this way and that to get the right affect going. He hardly even noticed the bridge or the running water as they passed it.

It was harder for Lydia to bike up the hill to her house than biking down it, so Beetlejuice planted his feet on the floor, held his claw-like hands out to the side, and slowly started to walk towards her. It was just like a scene in a horror flick. The lights on in the house looked even more spooky in the rain. Soon, Lydia reached the porch and pulled her bike out of the rain, leaving it on its side on the wood. The little girl dug into her pockets, frantically patting herself down. Beetlejuice, for the first time in the game, tilted his head in confusion.

 _ **“AAAAHH!! I CAN’T FIND MY KEYS!! AND I’M BEING CHASED BY A MURDEEERRRERR!!”**_ Lydia practically screamed, throwing her head back for dramatics and she desperately jiggled the handle to the door.

Oh! OOoh! Beetlejuice brought his shoulders up to his ears, taking one big step and stomping down on the stairs of the patio. Step by step he made his way out of the rain. He bet he looked SO SCARY with the lights from inside illuminated him. “Times up, little giiiirl!” He drawled, wiggling his fingers in the air. “You’ve got nowhere to run now! _You looooose!”_

“OH NO! SOMEONE HELP ME!” Lydia gasped dramatically, throwing the back of her hand to her forehead with mock flair.

Beetljuice paused for a moment, not being able to contain himself. The demon leaned forward, letting his giggles slowly become genuine laughter that was soon joined by Lydia.

But suddenly, from inside the house were stomping steps coming up quickly to the door. Beeltejuice looked down and saw someone’s shadow from below the threshold. There was a click as the door was unlocked and the demon felt his eyes grow fearfully wide. SOMEONE WAS OPENING THE DOOR!! Almost tripping over her bike, Beetlejuice practically dove around the corner of the porch, squeezing himself both into a ball and pressing his back against the house to make himself as small as possible.

“Lydia! Are you alright!?” Came the voice of Charles Deetz. This was it. They had heard him for sure, and now he was never going to be able to see Lydia again! “What happened?”

“Dad, Dad, it’s cool!” Lydia started, dropping her voice back down to its normal volume and tone.

“But I heard you yell? What are you doing!?”

“Dad, relax! I was just playing ‘Running from a Murderer’!”

Charles let out a very tired, relieved sigh. “Lydia, you _know_ how much I disliked that game.”

“ _Uuh_ , yeah. That’s why Mom thought it was _funnyyyyy!_ ” Lydia drew out her words, and Beetlejuice wondered why Charles didn’t sound madder at her.

“Well, just – come inside, you’re soaking wet.”

“Okay, let me just grab my bag first.” Lydia walked over to her bike, coming into Beetlejuice’s view. The girl gave him a very unamused look before whispering over to him. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” He hissed at her. “I’m hiding. Now shhh!”

“He’s not in the doorway anymore.” She told him, closing her umbrella and throwing her bag over her shoulder. Lydia moved over to the demon. “You’re soaked too, Beetlejuice. Why don’t you come inside and dry off?”

“Inside? Are you _kidding?_ Not after Chuck reacted like that. Plus, there’s no way they’d want to see me.” Beetlejuice uncurled himself, gesturing his hand to inside.

“C’mon. Once he finds out we were having fun this’ll all seem silly. Stop being such a drama queen and -“ Lydia reached out her hand, grabbing the demon by the arm in an attempt to pull him up.

Beetlejuice didn’t know why, but he felt himself suck in a harp breath that he didn’t need. The demon shot to a standing position, yanking his arm away from Lydia before stumbling back to gain distance from her. Lydia pulled her hands back, eyes shocked wide, once again not looking at him, but looking above his eyeline. Beetlejuice spun to the window, catching a brief reflection of himself in the glass.

He looked … _scared_ , and his hair was a very dirty, mucky looking yellow.

He turned back to Lydia, looking at her concerned expression.

“Hey, are you okay?” She took a weary step towards him.

“I’m gonna go back to the roof.”

“Beetlejuice, it’s raining.”

“I don’t care! Catch ya later kid.” And with that, Beetlejuice leapt up and through the covering of the porch. Once the demon was safe on the isolation of the roof, he had time to process what the absolute _**HELL**_ that was. He placed his soaking elbows on his knees, supporting his chin on his hands as he thought. Lydia had grabbed his arm and then he just ?? freaked out. What happened? He sort of did the same thing when she had gently punched him earlier.

It was weird. The demon was no stranger to physical abuse, but it was more on the ‘my mom’s a demon with extreme supernatural powers that she uses to throw me against a wall’ kind of way. Lydia had just grabbed his arm. It was different than that. She was different from his mom. Maybe it was like him with water? He thought about it for a moment as the rain rushed past his ears. No, that couldn’t be it.

_Could it?_

No. No. It was definitely the house. He just didn’t want to go inside. That was it.

_He just didn’t want to be inside the house._

_But why?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's this?? Plot?? Foreshadowing???? Incite on Beetlejuice's psyche?? An actual direction to the story????  
> Prof. Hidgen's voice: "yOU BETTER BELIEVE IT!!"  
> Also I channeled a bit of Will Blum's Beetlejuice because who can't resist that sweetheart?  
> also if you've got a tumblr visit me @peggydoodles


	5. A Couple of Five Star Reviews

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia continues her ongoing mission by trying to bring up Beetlejuice in every day conversation.

It had been about a month since Lydia’s second encounter on the roof with the Ghost with the Most, and almost two weeks since he had first followed her to school. She tried asking him why he seemed so upset when she tried to help him up, but the demon was shutting himself off again. He wasn’t like the goofball she first met. His jokes felt flat, without much effort, and his laughter didn’t feel as genuine as before, and when it was it was short lived. She hadn’t seen his hair in its normal shade of green since their green card wedding.

It was worrisome. He wasn’t happy, she knew that. She wanted to help him like he helped her back when he stopped her from jumping.

Beetlejuice started following her to school more often, always looking a bit pale when they stopped the bridge. She wanted to ask him if he was afraid of water, but decided to hold off a little longer. Beetlejuice was skittish, she didn’t want to scare him away with questions that might make him uncomfortable. Sometimes Beetlejuice would be waiting for her after school, other times he’d be back on the roof when she got home. The demon didn’t seem to have a regular routine, not like she had expected him to have one.

One thing that was constant was him turning down her offers to come inside. There was always an excuse. “Nah, they don’t want to see me” or “Not right now” or “Can’t, I’ve got a smoking hot date tonight with the moon” or something silly like that. Was he scared of the house or was he scared of everyone’s reactions to him being back?

Weekends were weird. Lydia wanted to spend more time with Beetlejuice, but it’s not like she could spend all day on the roof. Like it or not, she was starting to worry her dad and Adam with how much time she was spending up there. Questions of how she was feeling started to come up at dinner, and Lydia did her best to assure both her dad and her ‘ghost dad’ that she was fine and well, happy even.

She started to run errands in town for the Maitlands, riding her bike down to the shops to get them materials for their model town or things they had in life that they missed now. She’d get new records for Adam’s old player, or seeds for Barbara’s indoor garden. Getting outside of the house on the weekends also gave Beetlejuice more chances to follow her. It was good to see him off the roof every now and then, so step two of her mission was already halfway accomplished. Beetlejuice had told her that the roof was the perfect moping spot, so him being off the roof must’ve meant that he was feeling a bit better. Even his hair was a lighter shade of purple when they were out on the town.

“Why do the Maitlands want this stuff anyway?” Beetlejuice asked, slipping into the art supplies store after Lydia.

“Because they’re making a town model.” Lydia answered, grabbing a basket from beside the door. She kept her headphones on whenever Beetlejuice wanted to talk to her, since it was probably a good idea for the folks around town to **not** think she was crazy.

“ _God_ , that sounds boring as Hell.” The demon grumbled, lifting his feet off the floor so he could sit criss cross and float after her. He slouched, resting his elbows on his knees so he could support his chin on his hands.

“It makes them happy.” Lydia pointed out as she looked down at the list Adam had given her.

“Please, they’d get a rise out of watching grass grow.”

“They had a garden.”

“My point exactly.”

The two of them made their way toward the craft section and Lydia placed a bundle of fake turf, wood glue, a roll of paper that resembled water, and a packet of paint inside her basket. She moved herself in a circle for a moment, looking for anything else that they might need that wasn’t on the list. Then she got an idea.

“Hey, do you want anything?” She asked, turning to Beetlejuice with a smile.

The demon’s head popped up as he blinked in what she could only guess was surprise.

“What?” He said softly.

“Is there anything in the store you’d like me to get for you while we’re here?” Lydia asked, a bit more specific.

“ _Uuuuh_ , huh. I dunno.” Beetlejuice lifted his head, looking at the shelf with all its contents. He wiggled his fingers in the air again, once more like they were inching to hold something or looking like they were drumming on a countertop. Pinky, ring, middle, pointer, repeat. The action gave Lydia an idea.

“I know something you might like.” She stepped out of the craft section, realizing that making something might not be something the demon would be into. The girl stopped in front of a section housing several small toys and picked one up. “Here we go.” And she lifted up a small, multicolored plastic rope, fitting perfectly in her hand.

“What’s that?” Beetlejuice asked with a tilt of his head.

“It’s a deformation rope toy.”

“A what?”

“You twist it around and fidget with it. You can even snap it apart and stick it back together. It’s supposed to help with stress and stuff.” Lydia demonstrated by pulling the plastic and twisting it this way and that. She almost laughed at how intrigued Beetlejuice looked.

“Oh, uh, sure! Yeah, I’m sure it’ll keep me occupied. As long as your cool with buying it --- buying it … for _me_.” Beetlejuice paused, looking down with a very thoughtful expression as he placed his pointer finger on his chest. His fang peaked over his lip as the thought. “Oh.” He looked up at Lydia again. “Is this a gift?”

Lydia gave him a warm smile, tilting her head to match his. “Yeah. It’s a gift.” It occurred to her that Beetlejuice might not have ever received a gift before. She placed the toy in her basket for safe keeping. “I hope you like it.”

“Yeah. Yeah. I do ... Thanks."

Beetlejuice was silent as Lydia took out her headphones and payed the woman at the front desk. Along with Beetlejuice’s fidget toy, she also got herself a new set of black drawing pens for her sketchbook, and the two were on their way back to the house. Lydia had placed the bags within her bike basket, but gave Beetlejuice the rope first. The demon was now floating on his back, almost memorized by the little trinket. Lydia chuckled, she couldn’t tell if he liked the gift because of what it was, or liked it simply because she had given it to him. She guessed that it might’ve been a bit of both.

“This might be the coolest thing I’ve ever owned. It’s like a sandworm.” Beetlejuice smiled, not talking his eyes off the rope. “And look! It’s got stripes too! Like me! Nyehaahaha!” The demon giggled before letting out a hearty laugh from his throat. The one she had picked out for him was striped with green and two shades of blue.

“I’m glad you like it so much.”

“Oh, yeah! It’s great. This’ll keep me occupied for hours.”

Once they reached the house, Lydia pulled her bike onto the patio and leaned it up against the wall. She pulled the bags out of the basket and turned to the demon with a smile.

“Wanna come in and gives these to the Maitlands?” She asked hopefully.

“Nah.” Beetlejuice shook his head, his expression dropped just a bit. “I’m gonna head up and keep playing with this little guy. Thanks, Lyds!” And up he floated, leaving Lydia alone to give a rather annoyed huff.

She rolled her eyes, wondering if she was ever going to get Beetlejuice in the house, or if there was any way to actually get him inside. If the Maitlands couldn’t leave the house, maybe he couldn’t come inside? No, no. He was definitely just being dramatic about it.

“I’m back!” Lydia called as she entered, kicking off her shoes by the front door. Delia was in front of the television on a yoga mat and surrounded by crystals. She made her way over to her future step-mom with a smile, leaning over to say hello. “Tough day?

“Tough week.” Delia corrected, opening her eyes. “I am releasing my negative energy and welcoming the _positive_.”

“You look like your trying to summon the spirits of the undead.”

“No, no, no. My healing crystals only bring life, not death.” Delia lifted a finger, still a bit put off by Lydia’s dark jokes.

The girl giggled, patting Delia’s shoulder. “Is Dad upstairs?”

“Taking a well-deserved nap. He worked hard this week trying to sell those last few houses. I’m taking us out for dinner later.” She explained.

“You’re a good future step-mom, Delia.”

“Thank you, you’re a good daughter.”

Lydia’s face warmed, and she took a seat next to Delia with a smile. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“What did _you_ think of Beetlejuice? Like, _really_ think of him.” She asked, a bit slowly and cautiously.

“Well.” Delia started, tilting her head to the side as she thought. “I didn’t get to know him very well. After you went into the Netherworld, he got very, very angry. From what I could tell, he had a lot of pent up, negative and emotional _baggage_.” She said, saying ‘ _baggage_ ’ with a very breathy tone. “Why do you ask?"

“I dunno.” Lydia lied, shrugging her shoulders. “Just thinking about him, that’s all.”

“I may not be your life coach anymore, but I’m always here if you want to talk about it.”

Lydia smiled, leaning down to give Delia a quick hug before quietly making her way up the stairs as to not disturb her father. She opened the door to the attic, carrying the bags in as she watched Adam and Barbara bustle about in their usual manner.

“I got your things.” Lydia declared, setting the bags down on a nearby table.

Barbara gasped, clasping her hands together before making her way over. “Lydia! This is wonderful. It’s everything we need.”

“Hey, it’s the least I can do since you guys can’t leave the house.”

“Still, I wish we could.” Barbara sighed, her face dropping ever so slightly. The two ghosts discovered the boundaries of their earthly stay the hard way. When the two had attempted to go into the backyard to see how their old garden was going, they hadn’t stepped two feet out from the back porch before seemingly popping out of existence. It took two days for them to show back up, even if to them it only felt like two seconds in a sandy wasteland.

Lydia had cried for hours and Charles had even offered to expand the house for them. The two ghosts decided it was best not to test the waters for long while.

“No worrying about it now.” Adam piped in, walking over with a soft smile. He picked up the supplies and set them over on his work desk. “Did you have a fun time in town? Anything new happening?”

“Sure did. I got some new ink pens.” Lydia answered. “Nothing much is new though. Same old town.”

“Same old town.” Adam repeated with a somewhat satisfied grin. Although the Maitlands were becoming more confident and bold, Lydia liked to think the town was something they wanted to stay consistent. Hence, the model.

Speaking of the model; it was coming along quite nicely. The scenery of the top of the hill with the Deetz/Maitland house was complete, but the rest was still a work in progress. The two were currently working on the river that flowed through the side of town and the fields that surrounded it.

Lydia hoped that with the two of them focused on their work, now would be a good time to pop the question again.

“What did you guys think of Beetlejuice?” She spoke up, kicking herself mentally for not having literally _**ANY**_ build up to the question.

“What’s making you think of him, Lydia?” Barbara asked as Adam startled a bit.

“Ah, well, I dunno.” She avoided the ghost’s eyes. “I uh – had a dream about him, that’s all.”

“Did you have a nightmare?”

“No.” Why did they think that? “Just got me thinking of him, that’s all.”

Barbara hummed, sharing a glance with Adam. “Let’s see. There’s not much else to say that we didn’t say at dinner.” She stated and her husband nodded along.

“There’s not? Or were you guys just saying that because my dad was there? C’mon, there must’ve been _one_ thing you liked about him.”

“Lydia, he _**used**_ us.” Adam started.

“Not one?”

The man sighed, pushing up his glasses as he ran a hand over his face, then left it covering his mouth as he thought for a moment. “I mean … there was –” Then he giggled.

**_He giggled!!!!_ **

Lydia felt like squealing with accomplishment.

“There was _what?_ ” She asked a bit teasingly.

“Ah, well, you weren’t there for it. But I just remembered when we hired him to help us haunt you three.” Adam explained. “We were _terrible_ at it.”

Barbara giggled, looking like she was remembering it too. “He tried so hard to teach us how to be scary.”

“But he said we were too vanilla for it.” He continued. “He was making scary faces and we tried to copy. We were actually having fun.”

“It was nice having someone to talk to.”

“And joke around with.”

“And learn from.”

“It was like these couple classes we took when we were alive.” Adam continued with somewhat of a fond smile. “And the jokes he told? Yuck!” He put on an exasperated disgusted face.

“He certainly had a unique sense of humor.”

“I guess he was kind of nice.”

“In his own way. Especially after it seemed like he hadn’t talked to anyone in years.” Barbara shrugged, placing the wood glue up on one of the shelves. “He was a bit socially awkward, putting it lightly.”

“Did you … _like him?_ ” Lydia pushed, trying her best to sound as casual as possible.

“I think we were a little weirded out at first.” Adam admitted. “But once we got to know him, I guess you could say he was like a … weird friend.”

“Very weird.” Barbara agreed. “But it was nice of him to try and help us, even if he was trying to help himself too.”

Lydia couldn’t keep herself from smiling. This was perfect. She wished she’d had her phone out to record what they were saying and show it to Beetlejuice, to convince him that they did like him. That there was still a part of them that thought he was funny and nice and silly. She’d just have to hope he’d take her word for it.

“That’s real sweet, you guys.” She told them, making both ghosts turn pink in the cheeks at the compliment.

“But,” Lydia winced as Adam placed his glasses back on his head. “He tried to hurt Barbara.”

“Technically, that was _me_.” Lydia let her gaze drop to the floor, not a second later did Barbara’s hands find her shoulders.

“Oh, Lydia no. That wasn’t you. You didn’t know what you were doing.” She cooed. “He tricked you, and that was a very mean thing to do.”

That was something she hadn’t thought of in a while. Sure, the words Beetlejuice said at the séance still rang in her ears and her dreams every now and then, but Lydia still didn’t understand why Beetlejuice wanted to trick her. They were having fun, weren’t they? She just wanted to summon her mother, that way she could be back and have fun too. Lydia was so sure that her mom would’ve loved haunting the house with her and Beetlejuice, but she had no idea why it got Beetlejuice so upset.

“I know.” Is what she communicated to Barbara, giving the ghost a small hug.

“Hey, I know what will make you feel better.” Barbara smiled, gently running her hand over Lydia’s hair. “Charles and Delia are going out tonight. We can make spaghetti and have a movie night. Even make gross looking monster sweets. How’s that sound?”

Lydia knew exactly _who_ would like something like that.

After all, it might be easier to get Beetlejuice in the house if only Barbara and Adam were inside. And when Delia and Charles got home, it would be a good way to ease them into seeing him, especially if Adam and Barbara were there to plead his case. She smiled, not just at the woman, but at her own, pretty much ingenious plan.

“That sounds perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all!! I read ALL of your comments, and I mean AAAAALLLLLL OF THEM!!! You guys are so sweet and encouraging and I've never actually had feed back on any of my art/work before, so it's a really nice change. 
> 
> Second of all, hurray for a longer chapter! Hope you guys like ~world building~ because that's what most of this way. I figured it was good for set up before any more plot happens. Be on the look out for the next chapter! Things are starting to get good!
> 
> did anyone else have those rope deformation toys when they were a kid? it took me a LOT of google searches to actually find the name of them.


	6. Ready Set - Not Yet!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia gets Beetlejuice inside the house.

Lydia was quite determined that this was the perfect night to finally get Beetlejuice over whatever fear he had and get him into the Maitland/Deetz household. She knew that her father had to be a big source of that fear, and him being out of the house with Delia couldn’t be more perfect. She couldn’t blame Beetlejuice, her dad was a pretty big guy, anyone who didn’t know him like the family did would be afraid of him.

But seeing him all dressed up in a nice suit, hand in hand with Delia as they left the house, Lydia couldn’t see a softer man. He even opened and closed the car door for her. The two would be out for most of the night, since they were going to see a movie and then have dinner at some new fancy restaurant in town.

Lydia, Adam, and Barbara all spent time in the kitchen making dinner. Adam had turned on the radio and the three of them danced around to Shake Señora and Day-O until the pasta and meatballs were fully cooked. Dinner didn’t have much conversation aside from the usual. Lydia didn’t want to bring up Beetlejuice too much, or she might spoil the surprise.

When dinner was finished, the dishes were put away. Now came the fun part: Desert! Barbara and Adam were expert bakers. Making chocolate chip cookies from scratch was one of their favorite things to do. Ever since the strange and unusual Lydia came into their lives, Barbara took to making all her sweets look like little horror movie bad guys. By sticking two cookies on top of each other with icing in the middle, Barbara placed two pretzel sticks through the icing. And with a few decorations here and there, they made cookie sandwiches that looked a whole lot like Frankenstein’s monster.

Lydia had to remind them that Frankenstein was the creator and not the creature more time than she could count.

With the cookies set out on the living room coffee table, and Adam and Barbara getting cozy on the couch, Lydia knew that this was the perfect time.

“Oh! I forgot to take my roof picture!” Lydia said, placing her hand on her forehead.

“It’s already nighttime, but if you still want to go take a picture, we’ll get the movie ready to start.” Barbara leaned forward with a smile, grabbing the remote off the ottoman.

“Great! You two are the best! I’ll be right back!” Lydia rushed up the stairs, not being able to contain the great big smile that was plastered on her face. She didn’t go into her room to get her camera. Instead, she went straight to the attic and shut the door carefully behind her. Then she made her way over to the window and lifted it open. She stuck half her body out the window, turning her head to the side so she could see where Beetlejuice usually sat.

The pinstripe suited demon was laying on his back, hands above his head as he twisted the small plastic deformation rope toy within his hands. Lydia thought he almost looked like a little kid with a new toy on Christmas.

“Hey, Beetlejuice!” Lydia whispered, making him sit up in attention.

“Lyds! Hey!” Beetlejuice sat up and smiled, lifting a hand in a small wave. “Oh! Wait, the Maitlands!” He hushed his voice a bit, pointing inside.

“It’s fine, they’re downstairs. Come over here.” Lydia bounced on her heels with excitement. The demon seemed to notice this, as he gave her a teasing suspicious smile before standing up and walking over to her, placing the rope toy within an inner pocket of his jacket.

“Alright, kiddo. What’s gotten you all jazzed up?” He asked with a chuckle, tilting his head.

“Dad and Delia went out tonight.” Lydia stated.

“Did they?” Beetlejuice placed both hands in his pockets. “Alright. Good for them. That old fart needs to get out every now and then.”

“Adam, Barbara and I are having a movie night. We’ve got cookies and chips and stuff too!” Lydia told him, a bit more coaxingly, hoping that he was getting the idea.

“Rad as Hell. Which movie?”

“Coraline. It’s the only horror movie Adam can watch, and even he says it’s too scary.” She didn’t let Beetlejuice get out a small response. “Have you ever seen Coraline? It’s based on a real scary children’s book my mom used to read me.”

“Can’t say I have, kiddo.” Beetlejuice smiled and gave a shrug of his shoulders.

“Then you should totally come inside and watch with us!” Lydia stepped back into the attic, leaving the threshold of the window clear for Beetlejuice to come through. “You’ll love it! It starts out super eerie but then it gets really scary by the end. And if I do say so myself, the protagonist should remind you of yours truly.”

There was a pause, and then Lydia watched with disappointment as Beetlejuice’s hair turned a dark shade of maroon.

 _Another_ shade? What was **_THAT_** color supposed to mean?

“Damn it, kid. How many times do I gotta tell you I don’t want to go in the house?” He took one hand out of his pocket and gestured inside. “When are you gonna let this go?”

Lydia scrunched up her nose, walking back forward and placed both hands on her hips. “I’ll let it go when you stop being a baby about this. It’s just a house.”

“Yeah, a house with people who definitely don’t want to see me.”

“My dad’s not in there right now. And I talked to Adam and Barbara earlier, they were saying such nice things about you.” Lydia told him, dropping her defensive stance a bit.

“They … they were?” Beetlejuice lifted a brow.

“Yes! They were saying how they liked talking to you when they first died, and how nice it was of you to try and teach them how to be scary.” Lydia explained with a smile. “Beetlejuice, when they find out that we’ve been hanging out together, we’ll be able to put all that bad stuff you’re thinking about behind us.”

Beetlejuice took a long time to respond. Lydia searched his thoughtful expression for any kind of indication that he would come inside. The demon tapped his wrists against his legs, humming softly to himself, then he took a glance over her shoulder and into the attic. The attic HE spent time in with the Maitlands.

Then he reached a hand up and grabbed a bundle of his shirt material along with his tie right over his chest and he squeezed.

“ _No_.” Lydia’s heart dropped at his statement. The demon shook his head and took a step backwards. “Sorry, kiddo. Not this time.”

“Then _when?_ ” Lydia asked, more like demanded. “Beetlejuice, this is ridiculous! You’re a demon. You’re not scared of anything and you’re scared of a stupid house?!”

“A stupid house?!” Beetlejuice shot back. “A stupid house where stupid people live and no matter what nice words they told you, they told me to leave this house.”

“Then is it a spell? Can you actually not come inside?”

“Of _course_ I can, Lydia. I just don’t want to!”

“But why?”

“ _JUST **BECAUSE** , OKAY?!_” Beetlejuice threw his hands in the air. “ _God_ , you’re so annoying!”

“You’re the one who’s being annoying! I’m trying to help you.” Lydia told him, stepping back into the attic again. “I can’t believe you’re being so dramatic about this. We’ll do small steps, how about that? You don’t need to talk to the Maitlands, but at least come into the attic.”

“Nope! Nu – uh! No way!” Beetlejuice crossed his arms over his chest like a huffy child. “Sorry, Lydia. But there’s no way in **_HELL_** that you’re getting me inside that house.”

Lydia paused.

_Or was there?_

“Beetlejuice!” She shot at him, matching his stance and crossing her arms over her chest.

“What!?” The demon groaned, obviously sick of this conversation and how it was heading. “Look. I appreciate the toy you got me early, but I’m not –”

“ _Beetlejuice_.” Lydia cut him off, pushing her shoulders back for a much more confident stance.

The demon’s eyes suddenly got very wide as he realized what she was doing. He took a few steps forward, nearly slipping on the tiles.

“Wait, wait, Lyds. What are you - ? Oh, you – you _brat!_ That’s cheating! Don’t you dare!” Beetlejuice stuck a pointer finger at her, balling up the other hand into a fist by his sides. But Lydia did not speak, she would let the words go broken. “Lydia, I swear to _God_. Don’t you **_dare_**. I will make your life a living Hell. Don’t you dare say my –!“

**_“BEETLEJUICE!"_ **

Just like at her father’s dinner party, there was a flash of green light and suddenly, standing right in front of her and just a few feet from the window, INSIDE the attic, was Beetlejuice.

Now, summoning him might have been a tad bit dramatic. Okay, maybe it was a _lot_ more than just a tad, but she really was out of options. Beetlejuice couldn’t go on making excuses forever. Everyone needed a little push now and then.

“There, see? Not so bad.” Lydia said with a relieved sigh. “Like I said, you don’t have to talk to the Maitlands, I won’t make you, but this is a good first st-“

“ _Make me?_ ” The words came out like a tiny whisper, so small that Lydia almost didn’t hear it. Beetlejuice was looking down at the floor with wide eyes, but the girl soon realized he was looking at his hands too. **_“Make me?”_** He growled a bit more clearly. “Do you realized, what you just made me do?!”

Lydia took a step back. Once again not looking him in the eyes, but instead looking above in horror as his hair turned to a sickening familiar bright red.

* * *

“B-Beetlejuice?” Lydia’s words were hardly registered as the demon growled, squeezing his eyes tightly shut.

How dare she. How absolutely _**DARE**_ she do this to him! She forced him inside the house. How could she? _He thought they were pals._

But once again Lydia proved that she only cared about her own selfish desires, the desire to make her family perfect and happy, a desire to make herself feel better.

He didn’t want this. He didn’t want to be in the house. It was just like the water. He didn’t want it, he didn’t want to be near it, he didn’t want to be in it. He just wanted to be on the roof. Why couldn’t she just let him stay on the roof?!

Beetlejuice wouldn’t – he couldn’t let that stand.

And so he ** _SCREAMED_**

He screamed so loud and long that his throat felt raw when he was done. He opened his eyes to see Lydia leaning over and covering her ears, but he didn’t care. His eyes darted around the attic. Antiques and shelves covered in whatever junk the Maitlands liked were right within his reach.

Beetlejuice grabbed a nearby shelf and shoved it with all his might. " ** _RAAAAH!!!"_** It came crashing to the ground and splintered apart, most of its contents shattering as well.

“Beetlejuice!” Lydia gasped. “What are you doing!?”

“I _told_ you!” Beetlejuice didn’t go to face her, instead he found another shelf and pulled it down onto its side. “I told you I’d make it a living Hell, but _NOOOOOO!_ You had to not listen to me, huh!?”

“You gotta stop! They’ll hear you!”

“Oh, so _now_ you don’t want them to see me? I thought that was your whole plan?” Beetlejuice shot her a dirty look, making Lydia wince and look away. It didn’t stop him, instead he kicked over a nearby circular table containing what looked like a glass painting kit. It didn’t matter, it was all shattered now.

“Well, sorry to burst your bubble, kid.” Beetlejuice spun around and marched over to her, making Lydia scramble backwards and up against the wall. “But you wanted me in the house so badly, so this is **_WHAT YOU GET!”_**

“Why are you doing this?!” Lydia asked, sounding just like the scared child she should be.

“What made you think that I wanted this?!” Beetlejuice asked her, stepping closer.

“I-I thought it would help you. I thought if I got you in the house it would help get rid of some of your fears. I thought I could show you that this house isn’t scary.” Lydia said desperately.

“Not scary? Lydia, this house is the _**WORST!”**_ Beetlejuice shouted, making the room rattle with the force. “What made you think –“ He took a step closer to her. “-That I would _EVER, EVER -!_ ” Another step and Lydia was pressing herself to the wall. Beetlejuice got right up to her face and screamed. _“-WANT TO COME BACK INTO THE HOUSE THAT **I DIED IN!?** ”_

A scream drew his attention to the side. The door to the attic had been swung open, revealing Adam and Barbara Maitland in the threshold. The couple stared at him with wide eyes. Adam had his hands on Barbara’s shoulders, and by the looks of her with her hands on both sides of her face, she was the one who screamed. They looked at him with sheer shock and horror.

Beetlejuice realized they were afraid of him.

_Good._

“Hey, you know what would make this even more awesome?” Beetlejuice stepped away from Lyida, arms up in a gesture that showed he wasn’t actually going to hurt her. “ _MORE ME!!_ ” The demon flashed a sharp-toothed grin before clapping his hands together out in front of him. All of a sudden dozens of clones of himself filled the attic, tossing up art supplies and dumping over piles of paper.

Him with dark skin, him with pale skin, short him, tall him, lady him, guy him, all of them burst from the spot where he was, burst from cabinets and the walls. All of them scrambled around laughing historically at the shocked shouts from the Maitlands and the small protests from Lydia.

Beetlejuice’s smile only grew into a twisted and horrible expression on his face.

“Ooh! This looks important!” Beetlejuice said as he eyed the model town the ghosts were making. He sauntered over to it, carefully moving around his fast moving clones. He knew that the Maitlands were working hard on this. It was really a shame Lydia told him about it. The demon had a right mind to smash it and he summoned a very carnival-like mallet in his hands.

But before he could do anything, Adam rushed out in front of the model with his arms spread out, blocking the demon’s path. 

“Beetlejuice! Leave this house!” Adam stated boldly, puffing out his chest in some attempt to look stronger than he actually was.

“Adam, you’re hot, but I’m afraid flirting isn’t going to work on me this time.” The demon growled, narrowing his eyes at the ghost. “Why don’t you step your fine ass out of the way so I can-“

_SQUEEEEEAAAAK_

Beetlejuice winced at the sound and growled. He turned his head to find the source of the horrible ringing and spotted Barbara. The woman was at the wall, carefully avoiding the chaos his clones were making, and in her hand was a piece of white chalk. She dragged it in straight lines over the wall, going up in her tip-toes as she did. She was making a rectangle. No. She was making a door.

_Oh._

**_Oh, he got it now._ **

This was all part of their plan, wasn’t it? Lydia had told her family that he was hanging out on the roof and now they were trying to get rid of him again. Send him back to the Netherworld.

Abandoning the mallet, the demon held out his hand, and the chalk flew out of Barbara’s grasp and into his. He heard Adam wince beside him as he looked over the drawing tool. Beetlejuice’s eyes narrowed, and he crushed the chalk within his fist with a throaty growl. He opened his hand, letting the bits of dust fall to the floor with a very unamused glance towards the woman.

Quite suddenly, two palms found his chest and he was sent stumbling backwards as Adam pushed him. The nerdy ghost was stronger than he looked, it seemed. Before the demon could fall flat on his ass, a small hand met his back.

It was Lydia.

And she had her hand right on the place where she stabbed him. 

_Where she killed him._

And Beetlejuice knew immediately she was trying to do it again.

“NO!” The demon reeled back, spinning around and backing away from her before she could shove anything sharp right through his chest.

“Beetlejuice, please!” Lydia cried, clasping her hands together.

“NO! STOP IT, STOP IT!” Hands went to grasp and tug at his hair. He was done! He was done being lied to! He wasn’t their friend. He was just someone who could get living people out of the house. He was just someone to scare her dad. He was just someone to bring her mom back. He was just someone to save them all from his demon of a mother. They didn’t want him! Not him! They just wanted to use him.

“Beetlejuice!”

 _ **“STOP SAYING MY NAME!!!”** _The demon shouted with all his might. The shelves of the attic rattled with the raw force. Beetlejuice took once last glance at the horrible trio before spinning on his heel.

He practically dove through the open window, scrambling to his feet so he could run down the roof. He had to get away. He had to get away from these people. He had to get away from this house. His shoes clicked against the tiles as he ran, eyes squeezed shut. He didn’t care if he never saw them again. He didn’t care one bit if he never had another friend in his life.

“Wait! Please!” But Lydia’s voice was hardly a muffle above the wind and the clouds that clogged the demon’s mind. Beetlejuice took a great big leap off the edge of the roof —

And landed hands first in a bright, sandy wasteland.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy! Wasn't that a chapter, huh? I've been planning this one for a while & I'm glad I finally got to write it out. Lydia and Beetlejuice have a LOT to work out, but they're not the best at communication. Hope you all liked it!
> 
> I also hope that y'all are taking care of yourselves! Stay inside if you can and stay safe!


	7. For the Next Ten Minutes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beetlejuice sits in a sandbox. Lydia spills a secret.

_Okay._  
  
_So._  
  
_This is not what he expected._  
  
Beetlejuice winced at the brightness of his new surroundings, blinking to try and get his eyes adjusted to the harsh switch from night into day lighting. There were several thoughts going through the demon’s mind at the moment, though the main one had to be:  
  
**_What the absolute Hell??_**  
  
This wasn’t the Maitland’s backyard.  
  
His anger at Lydia and the ghosts had fizzled out with a pop to make way for confusion at this new strange situation. He looked down at his hands, still buried in the sand beneath him. He pulled them up to his eyes, watching the sand slowly slip out from between his fingers and back onto the dunes. Beetlejuice looked up, then he looked around. There was absolutely nothing but sand as far as the eye could see. He stumbled up onto his feet, not even bothering to dust the sand from his suit and he spun around. There, just floating in the middle of the world, not attached to anything, was a door. It was the pretty white door that led to the backyard porch of the Maitland’s house.  
  
“Oh, no.” Beetlejuice’s voice echoed though there were no walls. “Oh, man, oh, man, oh, man.” He brought his hands up, shaking them a bit in the air as he realized what was happening, then he went to grab his hair. “No, no, no.”  
  
That brat. That stupid, stupid _ **BRAT!**_  
  
Being stuck in the house was nice when it was just them haunting it and having fun. But now? Being able to leave the Maitland’s house is the one thing Beetlejuice wanted in the whole world. But Lydia just had to go and summon him **INSIDE** the house, didn’t she? She just had to be selfish and get what she wanted.   
  
“ _NO!_ No, no!” Beetlejuice spun away from the door, shouting into the desert world. “No! That’s not fair! That’s not fair! I didn’t want this!!” He doesn’t know who he’s screaming to. Maybe God, maybe Satan, whoever wanted to listen. The demon fell back to his knees, bending over to plant his hands on the sand again. “I didn’t ... I swear! I -“   
  
His mother would’ve called him a child. Beetlejuice slammed the ground with his hands with a growl. Then again and again until he was pounding on it like a kid who was denied a sweet before dinner.  
  
“NO! NO! NO!” He screamed. “That’s not fair!! I didn’t ask her to say my name! I didn’t ask for this!” He screamed and yelled and beat the sand with his fists, eyes squeezed shut as he just tried to focus on his raw anger instead of his thoughts.  
  
His mother was right. Maybe he was pathetic. Maybe he was so desperate for someone to love him. That’s why he left the Netherworld. That’s why he went straight back to the Maitlands and the Deetzes. He didn’t know if they could forgive him, but he stayed on their roof anyway. Then he actually thought things could work out with Lydia. That maybe she would be his friend again.   
  
But that stupid house.  
  
That house was terrible. It was where everything went right and everything went wrong.   
  
It’s where he met the Maitlands, cute and sexy Maitlands. What a pair they were. Couldn’t scare to save their after-lives, but still pretty amazing in their own ways. And Lydia. Wonderful, strange and unusual Lydia. She _saw_ him; she was the first living person to ever see him. And she summoned him and let him have fun again and they had fun together.   
  
But she abandoned him not a day later. And all for her stupid mother. So he had to make her pay.   
  
All he wanted to do was be alive and leave the house, but they couldn’t let him have that either, could they? No. They all had to trick him and make him think he mattered, just like his mom. And then Lydia -  
  
Beetlejuice stopped his tantrum, eyes daring to go back open. He slowly reached up and placed a hand over his chest where a piece of really, really bad art once stuck through.   
  
_He died._  
  
That’s why he didn’t want to be in the house.   
  
Beetlejuice sniffed, squeezing the material of his shirt around the spot. Dying, he forgot, hurt like a horrible bitch.   
  
That house just reminded him of everything that hurt him. Lydia, the Maitlands, his mother. It all just hurt so much and he -  
  
There was a sound that drew his attention up. Far away on the dunes, but quickly getting closer, was a black fin. Moving through the sand like a shark in water, it got closer and closer to him.  
  
_A sandworm!_  
  
“Hey, HEY YOU!” Beetlejuice shot up, shouting with all his might. “HEY! SANDWORM!! Ya like ghosts right?? Well, I’ve got a great snack for ya!” He waved his arms in the air, watching as the fin changed directions to head right for him. “YEAH! Yeah that’s it! C’mon up! This can be _aaaalllll_ yours!!”  
  
But the sandworm didn’t ram into him. It didn’t open its jaws and eat him whole. It didn’t do any of that. Instead, the beast stopped right in front of him and lifted up from the sand, looking down at him with a curious expression, if a worm could have one, and gave a tilt of its head. Beetlejuice didn’t know what to do at that, so the demon walked up to the sandworm and kicked it.  
  
“What are you waiting for?! I’m a ghost! You eat ghosts!!” He growled, trying to get the sandworm to act like the monster it was supposed to be. “Okay, so I’m demon! Yes! But I’ve seen you guys eat a demon before! You can’t be picky about this! Come on!” Beetlejuice’s voice cracked as his throat tightened. He moved up, hitting the sandworm with his fists. “WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! **_DO IT!!_** ” He screamed, looking up at the beast’s face.  
  
But the sandworm didn’t attack him. It lowered its head, giving him a sniff with its giant nostrils. Then it purred (or moaned, or groaned, or something like that) and pressed its head into Beetlejuice’s arms.  
  
The demon blinked with realization. This was not an ordinary sandworm.  
  
“Sandy?” He said softly, and the sandworm seemed to acknowledge this. Of course. Of freaking course it was the one sandworm in the history of sandworms that actually liked him. Stupid Beetlejuice, he just had to set this one free, didn’t he? “No, no, c’mon girl. I know you like me, but - but go get one of your friends or - or something!”  
  
The sandworm made another sound, a bit quizzical.  
  
“You know? Friends? Aren’t there other worms around here?” Beetlejuice asked, and Sandy’s weight grew heavier in his arms. “No friends, huh? _He - hehehehe._ Me - me neither, girl. I - I really — I’ve really ruined _everything_.” His voice broke, and the demon found himself sinking to his knees, the sandworm’s head still held within his arms.  
  
“Aw, Sandy, I — my mom was right. She was right about - about _everything_.” He whispered, pressing his forehead to the sandworm’s. Sandy gave a sad moan in response and Beetlejuice wrapped his arms around her head in a makeshift hug. He squeezed the sandworm closer to him, not realizing how badly he needed something to hold. The demon hiccuped, then his shoulders shook, and then the demon was screaming.   
  
He’d like to call it screaming.  
  
Anyone else would call it wailing, or maybe even crying.   
  
He screamed and screamed and pressed his face tightly against the sandworm’s. Sandy didn’t seem to mind; she let her comforting weight press into Beetlejuice like a heavy blanket. Beetlejuice didn’t know how long he was screaming for, but when Sandy shifted in his arms, he was tired as Hell.   
  
“What - what are you doing there, girl?” He asked, his voice rough and drained of all emotions. Sandy was pressing her nose into Beetlejuice’s coat, trying to sniff something out. The demon placed a hand on her nose to push her away so he could see what she wanted. He stuck his fingers into the inner pocket she was nuzzling into and pulled out a small, plastic, twisting toy.   
  
“Oh, you like this?” He asked, holding it up. Sandy seemed to agree, as she opened her jaw and bopped it with her smaller mouth. “Yeah, it does look like a little you, doesn’t it? It’s got nice stripes. Lydia ... Lydia gave it to me.” His smile fell as he held the toy in his palm.  
  
The demon sniffed, squeezing his eyes shut. He ran his sleeve under his nose and his eyes, trying to dry himself off. He couldn’t stay in the sand dunes forever. He knew this. It was either trapped in one place or trapped in another.   
  
He wondered if those didn’t have to be his only options. 

He could go with his original plan; get someone alive to marry him, become alive, leave the house. But being alive, even if for a brief amount of time, was such an ordeal. If Lydia summoned him in the house. All he had to do was make her summon him outside the house. Boom! Problem solved!   
  
Beetlejuice opened his eyes, placing the toy back into his pocket and stood up. He dusted himself off, fixing his coat to make himself look more presentable. Collar, lapel, sleeves, cuffs, tie. He huffed as he finished, brushing his hair through with his hand.  
  
“Gotta keep up appearances, Sandy ol’ girl.” He told her, patting her nose before turning to the door. “This demon needs to go have a chat with a certain family. I’ll talk to you later. Go get yourself a real snack.” He paused as he had his hand on the doorknob, and cast a glance back to the sandworm. “Hey, I bet my ma regenerated by now, why don’t you go look for her?” And he stepped through the door.  
  
He was then standing on the pretty white back door porch of the Maitland/Deetz household, staring at the door to their house. Okay, so, the porch counted as part of the house. That was good to know. But he didn’t plan on finding out other rules about this whole ‘ _being tied to the house_ ’ thing.  
  
It was a different time than when he left, though he couldn’t tell if the sun was rising or if it were setting. He didn’t care very much. He turned to look at the back door.  
  
Simple plan. Knock. Say hello. Demand they break the spell that bounded him to the house. Easy as that.  
  
So Beetlejuice stepped up, curled his hand into a fist, and pounded it against the door three times.  
  
**_BANG BANG BANG_**

* * *

Lydia’s heart leapt to her throat as soon as she saw Beetlejuice’s form jump off the roof. She wonders briefly if this is what he felt when he thought she was going to jump, but didn’t linger on it. The little girl rushed forward, scrambling through the window and onto her feet to run to the edge of the roof. She took a deep breath before looking down, worrying that she might regret what she saw.

But there wasn’t anything. No body impaled on the birdbath, no splat upon the lawn, no Beetlejuice.

“ _B-Beetlejuice?_ ” Lydia was shocked at how much her voice sounded like a little kid’s. “Oh, no. BEETLEJUICE!! Where are you!? Come back!” She raised her hands, cupping them to the sides of her mouth to project herself. “I’m sorry! I’m really sorry! Beetlejuice!”

“Lydia!” came Adam’s voice, and he grabbed Lydia by her arms to pull her away from the edge, which she had been dangerously leaning over. “Oh my God, Lydia?!” He spun her around once they were far enough away. His glasses were lopsided and his hair was frazzled. He looked immensely worried. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you? What happened? How did he get in the house? How did he get back here?! Are you hurt?!”

Lydia blinked, finally being forced to slow down and actually assess the situation. She thought she had been doing the right thing. Maybe not the nicest thing, but she thought she could make everything work out. But Beetlejuice got so mad and his hair -- She hadn’t seen his hair red since he tricked her into almost killing Barbara.

“Oh, Lydia. Come here.” Adam whispered, placing a hand on the back of Lydia’s head and pulling her into his chest. The girl hadn’t realized she had started crying, but she grabbed the back of Adam’s plaid shirt and pressed her face into him. He was cold, but there was a comforting air about him. The two stayed there for a minute before Adam spoke up again. “Let’s go inside, okay?” said the ghost as he placed a protective arm around Lydia and led her back through the window.

There were no signs of Beetlejuice’s clones, only the wreckage they had left behind. They seemed to have popped out of existence along with him. The attic looked like it had been turned upside down with papers, crafts, and other items littered around the floor. Even Barbara’s indoor garden had a few smashed pots.

Barbara was inside, picking up a few of the fallen objects that Beetlejuice had knocked over in his rage. The woman sighed at the wreckage, walking over to her garden to assess the damage it took.

“Hey.” Adam said softly, keeping both hands comfortingly on Lydia’s shoulders.

“Hey.” Barbara replied with a smile. “Are you two okay?” She picked up a broken pot and carefully moved it to one of the work tables. Then she walked over to the two to place a hand a both of their cheeks.

“Not hurt. But, I think we all need to have a talk.” Adam stated and he moved them all further inside. He picked up a chair from the floor and set it upright, gesturing for Lydia to take a seat.

Alright. She knew what this meant. She was in trouble for sure. What else would she expect for summoning a demon? Not just any demon, but **_the_** demon that tried to kill them all. Taking a deep breath and balling her hands at her side, Lydia walked over to the chair and sat down, ready to be yelled at.

Of course. Adam and Barbara weren’t yelling, or ridiculing her. They weren’t demanding answers or talking harshly. They just looked at her with concern. They knelt down to be closer to her eye level, or to seem less imposing. Adam placed a hand on Barbara’s shoulder and gave Lydia a concerned look.

“Lydia, what happened?” He asked her, softly, but insistently. “Why was Beetlejuice in the house? Why was he attacking you?”

“He _wasn’t_ attacking me!” Lydia started, holding up her hands. “He was just mad.”

“Why was he mad, sweetie?” Asked Barbara.

“I don’t – well, I kinda know _now_ , but this all really could have been avoided if he just **_told_** me from the start and – it’s a really long story.” Lydia sighed.

“We have time, sweetie. Why don’t you go start at the beginning?”

Lydia took a deep breath, mentally hitting herself in the head. She had made a promise to Beetlejuice that she wouldn’t tell her family he was on the roof, but the cat was out of the bag now. And it was better to tell the Maitlands first than her parents in her opinion.

“Okay. About a month ago I went onto the roof to watch the sunset. I must’ve been really close to the edge, because I got grabbed and pulled away, and it was Beetlejuice.” She explained, carefully gaging the ghosts’ expressions. “He seemed really worried that I was gonna jump, which I _wasn’t!_ But he was worried about me.” Hopefully, with that, the Maitlands could see that this recent fiasco was completely out of nowhere.

“So, we started hanging out on the roof. That’s why I’ve been going up there almost everyday.” Lydia continued. “Barbara, when I told you I was talking to my mom, I was actually covering for Beetlejuice, because he didn’t want you to see him.” She turned to look at the blonde woman, who seemed shocked a bit at first, but nodded for Lydia to continue. “So, we’ve been hanging out. He’s been walking with me to school and going on shopping runs with me. We’ve been playing games and I even got him a gift, but …”

“But?” Adam pushed with a gentle voice.

“Ugh! He’s been so … difficult!” Lydia groaned. “He never wanted me to tell you guys about him being on the roof and he always refused whenever I offered for him to come inside. But I thought that maybe I could ease him into it, show him that it wasn’t so bad so –“

“So that’s why you’ve been bringing him up? Trying to paint him in a better light for us?” Adam asked.

“He _**is**_ better, Adam!” Lydia insisted, clasping her hands together. “I know what you just saw didn’t look like it, but he is better. He’s nice. He’s actually … kinda depressed looking. His hair is like a mood ring, I – I think, and it hasn’t turned green since I saw him. It just sticks to purple and sometimes blue, and one time yellow? I don’t know what it means, but he’s not evil. He’s just … upset?”

“You call this _upset?_ ” Adam gestured to the state of the attic. “Lydia, what on earth caused this?”

Lydia shrunk her head into her shoulders. “Well. He was being … dramatic. I _thought_ he was being a drama queen about being in the house. He never came in, and I thought if he was inside, he could see it wasn’t so bad. So I … summoned him inside the attic to get him inside.”

“ _Oh, Lydia_.” Barbara started.

“I know it sounds bad! But –“

“Lydia, you can’t _force_ people to do what you want.” The woman continued, very sternly. And that got Lydia to stop. “He didn’t want to be in the house, sweetie. Beetlejuice probably doesn’t have a lot of good memories in here.” The girl winced; they must’ve heard what Beetlejuice said before they barged in. “If he didn’t want to be inside you had no right to force him.”

“He could’ve **_told_** me!” Lydia protested.

“I’m sure he would’ve in his own time, sweetie. But you can’t force people to talk about things they don’t want to.”

“Maybe _you_ should be his dead therapist.” Adam whispered, earning him a nudge in the elbow from his wife. “Uh, right, wrong time for callbacks.” He cleared his throat a bit awkwardly. “But I don’t get it. Where did he go? He jumped off the roof.”

Lydia paused to think for a moment. Then her stomach dropped as the memory of Adam and Barbara popping out of existence resurfaced in her mind. “I think … he’s not supposed to leave the house. Kind of like you guys?” She began, sinking her head into her shoulders, a bit ashamed of her quick actions. “Beetlejuice has been following me to school. And one time he told me when I summoned him in the house, he couldn’t leave it. That’s why he had to be alive.”

“Oh, no.” Barbara gasped, placing her hands over her mouth. “Adam, that means he’s in that place!” She grabbed her husband’s sleeve, turning to face him. “Do you think he’s alright? He could get lost in that wasteland.”

“Beetlejuice is a tough.” Adam placed a hand on her shoulder with reassurance. “He’ll be fine. But you remember what happened, right? We were only in there for a few seconds and it took us _days_ to get back home. It’s been a good ten minutes. Beetlejuice couldn’t be in there for a _week_ , maybe more.”

Lydia moaned, placing her hands over her face. “Oh, God. I really messed up. He probably hates me. And my dad’s gonna kill me when he finds out. I thought him being out of the house would make this better but everything just got so much worse and –“

“C’mere, sweetheart.” Adam reached forward, pulling Lydia back into another hug. This time, Barbara joined in, wrapping her arms over her shoulders. “Just take a deep breath. We’ll explain everything to your dad. For now, why don’t we all clean up here and head back downstairs? Beetlejuice won’t be back for a while. Let’s just try to eat, watch our movie, and see how we after, alright?”

Lydia paused. She didn’t really feel like eating anything, but maybe the movie could give her some idea on how to handle the inevitable return of the demon. So she nodded and gave a small ‘okay.’

The sweets they made went relatively untouched throughout the movie. And the three of them were silent for most of the time. Lydia sat with her feet pulled up on the couch, trying not to think about how much she wanted Beetlejuice there with them. It would’ve been fun; he would’ve devoured the treats, told Barbara how much he loved them, he would’ve teased Adam for being so scared of a children’s movie, then tell Lydia about some real-life monster the Beldam reminded him of. 

Things could’ve gone perfectly.

Maybe Lydia had been forceful. But was it really a bad thing if she thought what she was doing was right?

...

It must’ve been bad for Beetlejuice to react the way he did.

It was around midnight when the front door lock clicked and the door gently swung open. Adam, Barbara, and Lydia all spun around, maybe a bit too quickly, and all leaned over the back of the couch. 

Charles and Delia all looked back at them from the doorway with curious expressions.

Lydia sighed and turned back to the tv, sinking into the couch like she was melting.

“My goodness. I thought you all were watching a horror movie, not a drama.” Charles took of his coat, then Delia’s, and hung them both on the pegs next to the door. “You all look a bit down.”

“A lot happened tonight, actually.” Adam looked at Lydia, as if asking for permission. The girl groaned, leaning over to Barbara and burying her face into her side. 

“Is everything okay?” Asked Delia, setting down her purse on the coffee table. She took off her heels and carefully made her way over to the three with Charles close behind.

“Well, more or less okay for now. But things might get a little ... hectic in the near future.” Adam said a bit wearily.

“What do you mean?” said Charles, suspiciously looking over the three before landing his eyes on Lydia.

“Please don’t be mad.” She whispered softly, looking up to meet her father’s eye.

Charles paused, blinking a bit in surprise at her request. The man gave a sigh, running a hand through his hair. He walked over to the armchair and took a seat, probably guessing that he would need to sit down for whatever they were going to tell him. “Alright. I won’t be. I promise.”

It took a good five minutes for Adam to explain everything that happened to Delia and Charles, with Lydia piping in every minute or so to defend Beetlejuice in some way. After the ghost was finished, Charles’ face looked almost as white as theirs.

The man took a very deep breath and let it out slowly. Like a deflating balloon, he leaned forward and pressed his face into his hands. Delia quickly rushed over and placed her hand on his shoulder. 

“Well, that is —- **_mhm_**.” The man held a hand over his mouth, looking rather thoughtful. “Lydia, you should have told us.”

“I’m really sorry.” The little girl piped up, slouching over on the couch, almost mimicking her father’s posture perfectly. “But he didn’t want me to. He was really afraid of you guys knowing I was talking to him. He was really afraid of you guys in general.”

“Right. Well. We can’t do much now.” Charles sighed, rubbing his legs a bit anxiously. “All we can do is wait for him to show back up, if he even does. I wouldn’t blame him if we never saw him again.”

That made Lydia’s heart drop like a stone. What if they never saw him again? What if he was so mad, he never wanted to talk to her ever again?”

“But I suggest we all try to move on as normal.” Charles continued. “We’ll help clean up the attic, but I’ll still go to work on Monday and Lydia will still go to school.”

“But what if Beetlejuice comes back while I’m away?” Lydia protested.

“Don’t worry.” Charles moved over and carefully knelt down in front of his daughter, taking one of her hands in his. “Adam and Barbara will always be in the house. If he shows up, we can have them call us. But I don’t want this to cause you any unnecessary anxiety.”

Lydia blinked, still unused to her father being genuine about how he was feeling and acknowledging how she was feeling too. The girl nodded, wiping away a tear with her free hand. “Okay, okay, I’d like that.”

“Good. Now stand up. You’ve had a rough night and I want you to try and get some sleep.” Charles helped her to her feet and up the stairs. After she had gotten into her pajamas, he tucked her in and gave her a soft kiss on the forehead. 

He knew by now to leave the light a bit on for her, as he always did when her nerves got too overwhelming.

Lydia didn’t sleep that night at all.

Sunday passed with no Beetlejuice. Lydia stayed in her room most of the day, gathering up enough energy to have lunch, help her family clean up the attic, and take a shower before bed. 

School was tough that week. Riding to school on her bike deemed itself a harder task than normal. She wasn’t sleeping full nights, so Delia drove her to school, slowing down on the bridge in case Lydia wanted to take her picture over to old cover bridge.

“Keeping up a routine is important.” Delia said on Tuesday, the first day she drove Lydia to school. “Even if everything else is out of our control, keeping up a routine is the best way we can keep normalcy in our lives.”

School did help a bit in that regard. The routine of her classes kept her busy enough to keep her mind off of waiting for Beetlejuice if he ever showed up. Lunch was difficult. With no school work to keep her busy, her mind raced to upsetting thoughts. She tried to focus on other things, but they kept making her mad.

The clock on the wall of the class room kept ticking. Lydia hated it. Her classmate forgot to turn off her phone and it rang during class. Lydia hated it.

The week dragged on for longer than she felt it should have. Time for them was already moving slower than it was for Beetlejuice, why did he have to take his sweet time in coming back? 

Come Friday, Charles wrote an email to Lydia’s teachers explaining that they were experiencing a family emergency. Homework for over the weekend was just studying, but he asked them to be a bit flexible with what Lydia would be able to accomplish as of right now.

Her dad made dinner that night (shrimp scampi over rice), but the table was oddly silent, and Lydia hardly had an appetite.

“Lydia, sweetie. You‘ve hardly touched your food.” Barbara said softly, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“Sorry, just ... thinking.” Lydia shrugged and managed to put a forkful into her mouth, but had difficulty swallowing.

“I think we should try to do something fun tonight.” Delia started, clasping her hands together with a helpful smile. “Perhaps we could-“

**_BANG BANG BANG!_ **

The family went even more silent than before. It was too late for someone like the mailman to be making a delivery, plus, the knock hadn’t come from the front door. It had come from the back.

Where Beetlejuice disappeared.

Lydia stood up quickly, almost knocking over her chair, but Charles did the same and held out his hand to stop her. 

“You stay here.” He told her, rolling up his sleeves.

“But Dad!”

“I can’t risk him hurting you, stay with the Maitlands and Delia.” He ordered sternly, and walked out of the dining room.

Barbara and Adam stood up, placing themselves protectively around Lydia. Delia did the same as they waited. There was the sound of the porch door opening, then Charles said something they couldn’t quite hear.

But there came a very clear, very rough voice that followed directly after.

“ _Chuuuuuuuuck!_ Hey, old buddy. Ya wanna do me a solid favor?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a lengthy chapter here, but I really wanted to do something where both parts are happening at the same time! Hopefully I did a pretty good job with it! Thank you all so much for your lovely comments on that last angst filled chapter, I'm really glad you all are enjoying this! I never expected it to get this popular. 
> 
> also if you're on tumblr give me a hello over at sourgrapelaffytaffy/peggydoodles & I'll say hi back!


	8. Say My Name ... ?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rules are changed. Rules are established.

Beetlejuice stood with one hand against the threshold of the door with the other on his hip. He leaned his weight onto one foot (setting the other behind his ankle) like someone who just happened to be standing there when Chuck opened the door. 

“Mr. Juice.” said Charles with a stern kind of look on his face. 

“Good to see you too, pal.” Beetlejuice smirked an obvious and mocking forced smile. “So, like I said. Need a favor.”

“And what favor would that be?” The larger man asked, crossing his broad arms over his chest.

“Oh, it’s easy! Super simple. You don’t even have to do the hard part!” Beetlejuice lifted himself from his slouched stance and gave the old man two finger guns. “All you gotta do is go get your stupid, demon summoning, human murdering brat of a kid and have her step off the porch,” he says this making his two fingers walk across his forearm. “and step on outside. Then she has to say my name three times.”

“And why does she need to do that?” Charles asked, narrowing his eyes.

Beetlejuice’s smile dropped for a moment. He blinked twice. Did Charles want him to be trapped in the house? Quickly, the demon picked up his snowman persona once again.

“Chuck, man to man.” He says, gesturing between them with his hand. “Your kid summoned me in the house again, the little stinker, I know! So, I can’t leave your house. I don’t want to be in your house, and you _**DEFINITELY**_ don’t want me in your house. And unless we want to repeat the last fiasco like a theater company forced to do the same show over and over again, I suggest you get Lydia and have her summon me outside so I can leave.”

Charles’ brow furrowed into a knot on his forehead, but Beetlejuice kept a sly, all knowing smile on his face. The man gave a sigh and turned his head into the house, but kept his stance like a bodyguard in front of the door. Seemingly to keep Beetlejuice out. As if he would ever want to go inside.

“Lydia!” Charles called. “Would you come here please?” 

Beetlejuice perked up as not one, but several sets of feet came practically barreling from behind a faraway corner. Lydia was first, then Delia, and the sweet and sexy Maitlands were close behind. Though, the adults looked more like they were chasing Lydia more than they were coming to see him for themselves.

Lydia rushed over, making Beetlejuice take a cautious step backwards, but thankfully Charles was standing between them. Which prevented Lydia from crossing the threshold of the door.

“Beetlejuice!” Lydia practically cried as she tried to worm her way around her father. “Oh, my gosh. You’re okay! I’m so sorry! I didn’t think -“

The demon narrowed his eyes. Not one inch of him believed that she was actually concerned for him. He knew from experience that this kid either hated him or loved him and there was no room for in between feelings. After what just happened, Beetlejuice knew which one it was.

“ _Oooh_ , I _know_ you didn’t.” Beetlejuice spat at her. He placed his hands in his pockets to bend at the waist so he could be more on her level. “Look, kid. Don’t you dare apologize. If you’re sorry, prove it. Go into your backyard and summon me,” He posted a dirty fingernail behind him. “So I can leave.”

“You … want to leave?” Lydia asked softly as the rest of the family settled in behind her.

“Uh, yeah, of _course_ I do.” The demon scoffed.

“But –“

“Lydia.” Barbara placed her hand on the teen’s shoulder. Lydia drew her attention to the woman’s kind eyes. “If Beetlejuice doesn’t want to be here, we can’t make him.”

The demon watched Lydia for a second, then his eyes trailed up to Barbara. For a moment, the ghost’s soft, hazel eyes met his and he froze. If dead people could take your breath away (if you had breath in the first place), this would be one of those moments. Beetlejuice found himself exhaling breath he didn’t need out through his nose. Sure, the Maitlands were hot and sexy and when he first met them, Beetlejuice wanted nothing more than to kiss their breath away (again, being metaphorical here), but he never realized just how pretty Barbara’s eyes were. He doesn’t even think he noticed the color before.

“Barbara is right. It’s his choice to make.” Then came a second hand to Lydia’s shoulder and Adam appeared in Beetlejuice’s view. Now, this clearly wasn’t fair. Barbara was beautiful, and it’s not like Adam wasn’t pretty either, but he was a different kind of pretty. He was that weird, nerdy sexy that he didn’t know he liked until he started spying on the couple before they died.

Seeing them both standing there and defending his choice of wanting to leave made Beetlejuice want to shove past Charles and kiss them both squarely on the lips.

But he remembered the attic not ten minutes ago. Barbara scrambling to make a door and Adam shoving him away from the model town, and he tried to hold onto a bit of that anger. He couldn’t go falling head over heels for people he didn’t ever want to see again.

“Okay.” Lydia’s shoulders dropped as she let out a sigh of genuine, sad disappointment. “I _am_ sorry though.” She looked up to lock eyes with Beetlejuice as she moved forward. The demon stepped out of the way of the door, keeping more of an arm’s distance between him and the girl, just in case she decided to spring at him.

“Yeah, sure. Just say my name.” Beetlejuice narrowed his eyes at her, cursing himself mentally for actually feeling a twinge of pain at her hurt expression. He wasn’t supposed to feel bad for hurting her feelings. Lydia was the one who should feel bad, not him. “Just, none of that silly stuff you did on the roof this time. Just three times and I’m out of your hairs forever.” He says the last part looking towards the family.

Charles had a stoic expression, arms still cross and looking at Beetlejuice. Most likely making sure the demon didn’t try to pull anything or hurt Lydia. Which was very fair. Delilah (he thinks that’s her name, he’s pretty sure. Lydia had definitely said it once or twice while they were on the roof) looked between him and Lydia, probably inching to get her stupid life-coach hands on whatever emotional issues they had to work out. And the Maitlands; their gaze was split between him and Lydia, but he really, really wished they wouldn’t look at him at all.

Beetlejuice turned his head back to Lydia, who had stepped off the porch and walked out onto the grass. The girl in black walked out a good couple of feet away from the house and turned back to them. Her arms were locked at her sides with her hands balled into fists.

“Beetlejuice.” Lydia started. And thank God for that. The demon was ready to get off this porch and never set foot in this house again. He smiled a big toothy grin.

_“Yeess?”_

“Beetlejuice.” She said again, more confidently (if you could call her small voice anything like that).

 _“Yeeess??”_ Beetlejuice giggled through his throat, getting into a stance like he was ready to bolt out of there the second his feet landed on the grass.

_**“BEETLEJUICE!”** _

Beetlejuice threw his arms out to the side with as much pizazz and showmanship as he could manage during his current I-just-cried-for-ten-minutes-straight state.

And nothing happened.

Beetlejuice blinked his eyes open. He realized that he was still standing on the porch, arms stuck out to his sides like some kind of freaking loser. The Deetzes and the Maitlands looked at him with confused expressions, then they looked at Lydia, and then back to him again.

“… Huh.” Beetlejuice said with somewhat of a shaking voice. He patted himself down for a moment. He still felt as dead as ever. He snapped his fingers and a small flame appeared and disappeared in an instant. He still had his powers. “What happened?”

“Uuuuh, hold on. I’ll try it again!” Lydia cupped her hands over her mouth and called from where she was. “Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!” She said, a bit more quickly and with less dramatics. But still, the demon remained on the porch of the house.

“The Hell?” Beetlejuice looked down at himself. He still felt the twinge that he felt the first and second time Lydia said his name, but he hadn’t moved an inch. “Did it change?” The demon reached into his coat pocket and fished out the card his mother had given him when she established the rules of his curse. Did the rules change? Why would she change them? They’d been the same rules for hundreds of years, why would she change them now?

But no. The card wasn’t different. It was still **_Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice,_** written in his mother’s harsh handwriting.

“Why isn’t it working?” The demon asked to himself. “Why isn’t it working!?” This was then called to Lydia.

“I don’t know!” Shouted Lydia back.

“Well, are you saying it wrong!?” Beetlejuice shoved the card back into his pocket. “It’s not that hard! You must be messing it up somehow!” The demon took one step, then two steps closer to the lawn, but before he could make it any further a pair of hands grabbed onto his arm.

“Wait! Beetlejuice, don’t!” It was Adam, he had his hands wrapped around Beetlejuice’s forearm.

The demon automatically freaked, in a scientific term, the absolute Hell out. “Let _GO!_ I’m not gonna hurt her!” He spun, yanking his hand out of the ghost’s grip. The momentum had him teetering on the steps of the porch, and he threatened to fall backwards.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Beetlejuice flailed his arms in a circle. He watched Adam reach out again, this time grabbing the lapels of his jacket. The ghost squeezed his eyes shut and pulled with all his might (which happened to be a whole freaking lot) and hauled Beetlejuice stumbling back onto the porch.

“I know you weren’t!” Adam insisted, and that statement made him blink. “But if you go back into sandworm land, who knows how long you’ll be gone!” He took his hands away from Beetlejuice to gesture behind his shoulder at the lawn.

The demon turned, realizing that he could’ve very well just stepped back into the sandy wasteland if it hadn’t been for Adam. But he didn’t have time to thank the ghost, not that he was going to, demons didn’t thank people, as Lydia was quickly rushing towards him.

Beetlejuice immediately stumbled out of her way, and she went past her family and into the house. Lydia went a few feet down into the hallway and spun around.

“Let’s see if this works instead!” She called. “Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice –“

The demon’s eyes widened and he stuck his hands out in front of him. “WAIT!”

“Beetlejuice!”

_**BAM** _

Beetlejuice appeared inside the house with the speed of a bullet and stumbling with a momentum he couldn’t stop. He tripped over the rug that lined the hallway, crashed onto the floor, and did a complete barrel roll into a small vase stand. The stand cracked under his back as he rammed into the wall, and the vase flew into the air and smashed in half over his head; the flowers and water from inside spilling over him.

“Oh, my gosh! Are you okay?” Lydia asked, but made no move to touch him or help him back up. Good. She was learning from last time.

Beetlejuice groaned and opened his eyes, squinting down at the rug under his fingers. He reached up and grabbed the flowers, throwing them to the floor before doing the same with the vase. He looked around and saw what he most definitely did not want to see. Him inside the house. Beetlejuice felt his eyes go wide again. His breathing, if you could call it that, quickened and he tried to push himself off the floor, but he couldn’t get a good grip on anything in his awkward position.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Not Lydia, but Barbara spoke. He looked to see the woman rushing over with Adam close behind her. She didn’t get close to Beetlejuice, but squatted down before him, resting her weight on the front of her feet. She held her hands in a defensive or calming position. “It’s gonna be okay.”

Beetlejuice’s eyes darted to the sound of a click, and he realized the door to the porch was now closed. Charles and Delia had followed the others inside and shut the door behind them.

_No._

“N-no!” Beetlejuice reached out a hand, but he couldn’t find the energy to make anyone go flying or have the door spring back open. He didn’t want to be trapped in here again. Not here. Not where he died. Not when phantom pain still grabbed at his chest and made his eyes sting.

“Beetlejuice, it’s okay. We know how you feel!” Adam got down too, placing a hand on his chest and his other in the same ‘I won’t hurt you’ position as his wife.

“No! It’s **_NOT_** okay!” Beetlejuice snapped at them, shifting around in the splintering wood. “You don’t know how I feel at all! My curse isn’t supposed to do that! It’s supposed to free me, not trap me!”

“We can’t leave either, Beetlejuice.” Barbara said softly. “We know how hard this is.”

“It’s different for you! You guys love this stupid house!” He hated house much he sounded like an angry kid. He must’ve looked pathetic.

“It is so hard not being able to leave this house.” Said the woman with a sad smile on her face. “We can’t go outside, or make a garden, or go for walks.”

“We know exactly how you feel right now, Beetlejuice.” Adam stated, matching his wife’s smile. “We died here too.”

Beetlejuice blinked. Oh. He almost forgot about that teeny-tiny factor. The Maitlands not only died in their own house, but their house kind of killed them itself. It must’ve been tough for them. The demon sniffed and ran his hand under his nose.

“My curse got changed somehow.” He stated gruffly, pulling his legs in so he could curl himself up, setting his arms over his knees. “I can only be summoned inside the house? What kind of stupid rule is that, Mom?!” He shouted out, making the family before him jump.

“Your … mom?” Delia spoke up from behind Charles, giving a curious tilt of her head.

“Yeah. She cursed me in the first place. She’s the one who makes the rules.” He said with a shrug.

“But your mom’s dead.” Adam fumbled. “We – we saw her get eaten by a sandworm!”

“Sandworm’s eat _ghosts_ , hotcakes.” Beetlejuice rolled his eyes. “If you hadn’t noticed, my ma and I are demons. Same kind of vibe, different build. Demons regenerate if they can. And boy, believe me, my mom does not want to die.”

“Do you think she’ll come back here? Come back for Lydia?” Charles asked, stepping closer with aggressiveness edging his voice.

Beetlejuice pressed his back against the wall. “N-no! No, I don’t think so. We’d have to make a door to the Netherworld, I – I think!” The demon stuttered, not willing to put barriers on his mother’s powers. She was a scary, powerful being. “Plus, I don’t think she’d want to! I guess … I guess she thought –” His eyes fell and his shoulders slumped. “I guess she thought being stuck in a house with _me_ was punishment enough. She probably thinks I'll just kill you guys myself.”

“So, are you … gonna have to live here?” Lydia finally spoke up, drawing Beetlejuice’s eyes to hers. He didn’t know what was going through her mind, but he had a pretty good guess.

“Yeah. Guess you got what you wanted, huh, kiddo?”

“I didn’t want this.” Lydia told him sadly. “Not like this.”

Beetlejuice huffed, shaking his head slowly. He shifted once again, placing one hand on the floor and the other on his knee, pushing himself off the floor and into a standing position. Though, he did remain slightly deflated.

“Sorry about the stand, and your vase, …. And the flowers.” He grumbled, shoving his hands in his pockets. “But I think you guys are stuck with me.”

There was a long sigh and Charles walked past them with his face on his hands. Lydia and Delia followed him, the little girl pulling on her father’s sleeve and saying something about a guest room. Beetlejuice watched them turn a corner and then he was left alone in the hallway with the Maitlands, who were both standing up with empathetic expressions.

“Lydia is sorry about what she did.” Barbara pushed with a helpful voice. Beetlejuice shot her a glance as he went to fix his suit. Collar, label, sleeves, cuffs, and lastly his tie. “I know your sad, but –“

“Sad?” Beetlejuice forced out a laugh, pulling himself back up to his sly, cool demeanor. “Who said I was sad?”

“Your hair is purple.” She said softly.

**_‘WHY IS YOUR HAIR PURPLE!?’_ **

Beetlejuice blinked at her, startled. Trying not to hear his mother’s voice ringing in his hears.

“Everyone to the living room, please!” Came Charles’ beautiful, death-saving voice from down the hall. Beetlejuice turned on his heel and walked as smoothly as he could to where the man’s voice came from. “We’re going to make a plan to make this work.”

The three Deetzes were in the living room surrounding the coffee table. Beetlejuice walked in with Adam and Barbara close behind. He stopped though, looking down at the rug and lifted a brow.

“New carpet?” He asked curiously.

“Oh, yes.” Delia giggled a bit nervously. “We um, we couldn’t get the uh, the bloodstain out.”

Beetlejuice made a sound rather like a deflating balloon. 

“Alright. If we’re all going to be living under the same roof,” Charles started, walking over to his work briefcase. He stuck his hand in and pulled out a notepad and a pen. “We’re going to set some ground rules.”

“Charles is a businessman.” Said Delia, smiling towards Beetlejuice. “He’s wonderful at drafting clauses and agreements.” 

Beetlejuice grimaced. “This is just going to be just a ‘list of things BJ can’t do’ is it?”

Charles blinked as he opened the notepad. “Oh, well, um-“

“Of course, it’s not.” Barbara interjected, placing a hand on Beetlejuice’s shoulder. “We’re all going to follow the rules. You can make some too if it makes you feel comfortable.”

The demon blinked at her. He looked down at her hand, then to her eyes, and then back again. He cleared his throat, shrugging his shoulders and stepping a bit away from her. “Yeah. Cool. Whatever. Hit us, Chuck.” He said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Alright, first of all:” Charles flipped to a clean page and clicked his pen. “No murdering or attempted murder of any kind.”

“HA!” Beetlejuice threw his head back, making everyone jump a bit. “Ya hear that, Lyds? Can’t kill anyone.” He snickered, looking over at the teen with a less than nice expression.

Lydia scrunched up her nose in retaliation. “I think it’s meant for you too, Beetlejuice.”

“Actually, if you’ll remember, I never actually killed anyone.” The demon smirked, matter-of-factly. “You’re the one who killed me, kiddo.”

“Didn’t you kill Otho?!” Lydia shot back.

“Oh, no. I sent that guy who knows where. I prefer killing with my hands. You think I’m gonna let a silly wheel going stage right do it for me?” Beetlejuice snickered. “No. Sorry, kid. This rule is aaallll for you.”

Lydia blinked, as if she had just realized something. Then she turned from him with her brow furrowed. Good. Let that sink into her conscience for a bit. 

“Actually.” Charles spoke up, making Beetlejuice snap his jaw shut. “As Barbara stated, the rules are for all of us. Attempted murder counts as well.”

“Which means.” Interjected Barbara again, in her extremely soft as silk, calming voice. “We won’t hurt you, and you won’t hurt us.”

Beetlejuice looked at Barbara for a moment before grumbling again. “Fine, but now I get a rule.”

“Alright. It’s only fair.” Said Charles, holding out the pen and paper. “Do you want to write it?”

“No, you can do that.” Beetlejuice sniffed before continuing. “No one says my name three times in row.” Said the demon, holding up three fingers. “You know what? No, not even twice. I get all ... ugh, jittery.” 

“What if it’s an emergency?” Asked Lydia.

“Then deal with it yourself.” Snapped Beetlejuice back. “I’m done being your problem fixer.”

The two stared at each other for a moment, a cough from Adam drew the attention to him.

“I think that’s a good rule. I have one of my own, if I may?” He said softly, adjusting his glasses like a complete nerd. “I think we should all respect each other’s spaces. Knocking on doors, asking for permission to enter, not touching anyone else’s things without permission.” 

Charles nodded, writing down both rules.

“Speaking of permission,” Barbara spoke up, her index finger pointing in the air. “Beetlejuice, you were very ... physical when we first met.” This got the demon to narrow his eyes at her, to which she quickly put her hands up in defense. “Not that that’s a bad thing. But in order for us to all feel comfortable, I think we should all ask permission before we ... place a hand on someone. At least until we know they’re comfortable with it.”

Beetlejuice knew for a fact that this rule was directed at him. So what? He thought the Maitlands were hot. They really ought to take it as a compliment. But it also got him thinking to when Lydia grabbed his arm without asking him, and he had totally freaked out. 

“Fine. But it goes for you guys too. No one touches all this -“ he gestured to himself from top to bottom with a wave of his hands. “Without askin’ or telling me first.”

“Oh!” Barbara gasped. “I put my hand on your shoulder! I’m so sorry, I should’ve asked.”

Beetlejuice lifted a brow, looking at her like she had grown a second head. No one had ever ... apologized to him before. Not sincerely. Unless she was being sarcastic, or lying, both of which were possibilities.

“Yeah. Sure. Don’t sweat it.” He told her, shrugging his shoulders. 

“Alright. No murder, no saying Mr. Juice’s name two or three times in a row, respect our individual spaces, and asking for permission before we set hands on each other. I’m going to add no possessing anyone.” Charles read down the list, nodding as he did so. “I think that’s a rather good start. Does anyone have anything to add?”

Beetlejuice paused for a moment before raising a hand. “Yeah, I got one. No one gets to pretend they like me.” He said, returning to crossing his arms. “I don’t want any of that ‘oh, Beej! We love you soooo much!’ only for me to get stabbed in the back.” He heard Lydia shift beside him, but he continued. “That sucked. So be honest about hating me, because I don’t want that fluffy nonsense.”

Charles paused and glanced around the room to the others. He cast a look at Delia and gave her a shrug.

“I think what Beetlejuice is saying is that we should all be honest about our feelings.” Delia said helpfully.

Charles nodded, then spoke as he wrote. “Be honest about our feelings.”

“But!” Adam lifted his hand. “No one should be forced to talk about something they don’t want to. Bottling up our feelings isn’t healthy, but we shouldn’t push each other. We be honest, but in our own time.”

Beetlejuice smiled. “Hear that, Lyds—?” 

“Yeah! I heard it!” The teen snapped back at him, making the demon growl and bare his teeth back at her.

“Okay, okay!” Adam stepped between them, holding his hands to space them out. “We are all going to follow the rules.”

“That’s right.” Charles tore the paper from the note book and walked over to the fridge. He placed the piece on the surface with a magnet. “This won’t be a concrete agreement. We can add rules any time we want, but we all have to agree on them.”

The man waited for a moment to see if anyone else spoke up, then he nodded. “Alright then, Mr. Juice. Our guest room is just up the stairs if you want to-“

“I’m sorry.” Beetlejuice giggled. “But if you keep calling me that, I’m gonna have to start calling you something stupid too. Like Charlie or something.”

“Ah, I just thought I’d be more formal with you. I could call you by your first name if you’d like.” Charles replied, placing a hand in his pocket.

“It’s not my first name. It’s my middle name. My first name is ... Lawrence.” Beetlejuice coughed, going to fix his tie, a bit embarrassed. Charles opened his mouth and the demon held up a finger. “You can absolutely not call me Lawrence. The middle name is fine.”

“Alright then. Beetlejuice.” Charles looked at the Maitlands with curiosity for a moment before gesturing up the stairs. “Our guest room is up the stairs and is the first door on the right. If you want you can -“

“Cool. Welp!” Beetlejuice clapped his hands together, interrupting Charles before he could finish. “I’d say today has been fun but I’d be breaking the honesty rule.” The demon spun on his heel, flicking his hands into two finger guns at the group. “I’m gonna go try and enjoy my new prison. Thanks guys! You’re the woooorst!” And up the stairs he went. The demon found the door and shut it rather roughly behind him.

He spun around, pressing his back to the wooden door. Beetlejuice let out a soft, long sigh as he slouched against the material. His mother really did it now. She was cruelly smart; he’d give her that. He took a deep breath and pushed himself from the door, ready to observe this new room.

The first thing he noticed was how boring the room looked compared to everything else. It had more of a Maitlands feel to it than a Deetz. There was a door leading to a small bathroom on one side of the room, though he would probably never use it. There wasn’t a rule that said he needed to bathe. The bed in the room was large enough for two people (three, if you wanted to have fun) and was pressed to the center of the back wall. It was covered in soft looking pillows and a warm looking quilt.

The demon rolled his eyes. Yeah. It was the Maitlands’ alright. He walked over, kicking his shoes off and sitting down on the surface. He almost sank into it; it was so soft. He had to set his hands on either side of himself to keep steady. He can’t remember the last time he sat on something so soft.

Okay. Maybe the bed wouldn’t be too bad.

He ran his hand over the quilted blanket. Picking up the end near the pillows with his hand, he wondered briefly if the Maitlands made it themselves. He looked towards the door for a moment, then brought the blanket up to his nose.

It smelled like them. 

And he smiled. It was soft too. He pressed his face into the fabric and gave a tired sigh, maybe mixed with a bit of dreaminess. 

There was a knock at his store and the demon shoved the blanket away.

“Beetlejuice?” Came Barbara’s voice. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah! Uh, yeah! C’mon in.” He hopped up from the bed, tapping his wrists against his hips. Hopefully Barbara hadn’t gained some ability to see through walls.

The door opened and Barbara stepped in, holding a small pile of clothes in her hand. 

“Hi, Beetlejuice. I hope you like the room.” She said with a smile.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s pretty okay, I guess.” The demon shrugged.

“Well, I didn’t know if you slept in your suit.” She started, holding out the pile to him. “But I brought you some of Adam’s old clothes. He always got oversized hoodies from company events, and I found out how to resize things, so I made his old sweatpants bigger for you.”

Beetlejuice took the objects from her, looking them over with curiosity. He didn’t tell her he wanted these. “You’re just ... giving these to me?”

“If you’d like them. I just figured you’d might want to sleep in something more comfortable.” 

The demon smirked and opened his mouth, but Barbara cut him off.

“Ah ah! Don’t make that into a joke. I’m doing something nice for you.”

“Nice for me?” He didn’t mean to say it out loud, and he winced as soon as he did. “Well! Great! Thanks! I appreciate the stuff. Night Babs!” He spun away from her and back to the bed. 

“Oh, goodnight, Beetlejuice.” Came her light reply, and she shut the door behind her as she left.

The demon groaned and looked over the clothes in his hand. One was a zipper hoodie with a company logo he didn’t recognize, and the other was a pair of large black sweatpants. Neither were really his style, but they were Adam’s clothes and Barbara really didn’t have to do this, but she gave them to him anyway. Something about that made him smile.

He can’t remember the last time he took off his suit. He changed his outfit when he was playing Life or Death, and then again when he got married, and shortly thereafter, died.

Beetlejuice grimaced. He decided that he didn’t want to take off his suit, or at least not entirely. The demon placed Adam’s clothes on a nearby chair and took of his jacket, hanging it over the back. He unclipped his suspenders and tossed them carelessly on the floor before returning to the bed. He had grabbed the hoodie and pulled it over his shirt. It was soft, he had to admit, but he left the pants where they were.

Putting the full set of pajamas on for him meant admitting that he fully accepted this situation. And he 100% did not accept it at all. He felt like he was always trading one bad situation for the next.

He sank down fully into the bed, tossing the quilt over his body and sunk his head into one of the pillows. Beetlejuice grumbled at how comfortable it was. 

The situation sucked. But at least the bed was nice. 

Beetlejuice can’t remember the last time he actually fell asleep right away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! I hope you're all doing as well as you can be in this sticky situation. For me? I'm doing pretty alright. Writing this stuff helps me out a lot, & your comments do too! Speaking of comments, take this time to go comment on another fic you love! Even if it's just a small 'thank you' or 'i loved this!' just to spread the love around.
> 
> As for the chapter! Beetlejuice has certainly gotten himself into an odd situation, huh? Didn't realize you self project onto a character until you find your stuck in the same situation. Be sure to be on the lookout for the next chapter & thank you all for your kind words & amazing feedback. I still can't believe this started as a tiny little drabble.


	9. The Whole "Being Trapped in a House" Thing, pt 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia attempts to talk to Beetlejuice about what happened.

_“You didn’t listen, Dad. Now this is what you get.”_   
_“Yeah, Dad! This is what you get!”_

_“We could’ve made such a great team, but you wanted your mommy, so this is what you get!”_

_“But you wanted me in the house so badly, so this is what you get!”_

Lydia woke with a start. She didn’t remember falling asleep that night. She had been tossing and turning with the thoughts that Beetlejuice had stuck in her head when they were making the new rules of the house. She must have, obviously, because she woke up at around eight in the morning with her black covers twisted all around her. Lydia struggled out of them like an inmate with a straight jacket on, trying not to fall off the bed as she did so. Eventually she managed to kick them off and she sat up in bed with an annoyed huff.

She _did_ kill Beetlejuice. But she had a perfectly good reason to. It was a bait and switch, sure, but the demon was trying to kill her family, and she had no other choice in the matter.

At least, that’s what the family always told themselves.

Lydia shook her head to clear her thoughts. Placing both her feet on the ground, she pushed herself off her bed and walked over to her gothic-themed vanity mirror. She had gross purple circles under her eyes and Lydia briefly wondered just how little sleep she got last night. If she was going to guess, it was probably only three or four hours, if she was lucky. Maybe she should ask Delia for some kind of sleeping crystal.

While she didn’t think crystals really worked, the placebo affect always did.

After brushing her hair and her teeth and getting fresh clothes on, Lydia could already hear the soft sounds of dishes, silverware and coffee mugs clinking downstairs. It was time for breakfast already, and the people in the Deetz/Maitlands household were early risers, not willing to waste a second of a wonderful or beautiful day. Lydia wrapped her hair in a blood red ribbon, pulling it up into a small ponytail, and made her way out of her room.

For a moment, she stopped in front of the guest room door. She wondered if Beetlejuice was up, or if he even slept at all. Did demons need sleep? If not, did they sleep for fun or to pass the time? That’s what the Maitlands did. She wanted to knock on the door, or peak in, or even just press her ear to the door to see if she could hear him at all. But better judgement told her that it probably wasn’t the best idea, so she quietly snuck past his room and down the stairs.

She thought about how much Beetlejuice looked at her like he hated her. To think the two of them, only a few months ago, were standing up on the roof looking shocked at each other. To think they were exchanging awkward, not exactly apologies. Or doing homework on the roof. Or buying the Maitlands materials for their town model. She understood why Beetlejuice hated the house; it was the same reason the Maitlands felt down every once in a while. They died. And that was a pretty sad thing to think about.

All of this could’ve been avoiding if Beetlejuice had just told her that from the beginning instead of ‘just because.’

She really needed to talk to him.

Lydia grabbed the threshold of the door with her hand, using her momentum to almost slingshot herself into the kitchen. Thankfully, no one had been right at the door for her to accidentally crash into (an occurrence that had happened more than once). Adam and Barbara were in the kitchen. Adam was over the stove and his wife was tending to the plants on the window sill.

No Beetlejuice.

“Hey.” Lydia said with a small wave, walking further in.

“Hey, kiddo! You’re just in time for an _eggcellent_ breakfast!” Adam turned, holding up a spatula with a bright, cheeky grin on his face. When Lydia groaned at his pun, he simple shrugged and turned back to the pan. “Sorry, just trying to lighten the mood.”

“Where’s Delia and my dad?” Lydia asked, picking a spot at the table before sitting down.

“You just missed them. They went for an early jog.” Barbara explained, placing the small watering can back down in its proper place. “They should be back in a bit.”

Lydia nodded, letting simple silence take the group for a moment. She tapped her fingernails against the wood of the table.

“ _Aaaaaand_ … where’s Beetlejuice?” She asked, a bit more carefully.

“He hasn’t come down yet.” Barbara said as she took the seat next to Lydia. “But he had a pretty long day yesterday, considering for him, all that stuff in the attic and finding out he was trapped in the house all happened on the same day. Let’s give him a little longer to sleep.”

The little girl nodded; a bit disappointed. She would just have to wait for him.

“Hey, pep up. We’ll find a way to figure this out.” Adam looked over his shoulder with a helpful smile. The ghost turned off the heat of the oven before carefully transferred the eggs and bacon to three plates, placing one in front of Barbara, then Lydia, and then finally settling down a plate for himself.

The three of them ate in relative silence, not really knowing what to talk about. Or what they _could_ talk about, really. The events of yesterday still hung like a thick cloud over the household. Now they had three ghosts trapped in the house. The Maitlands were easily entertained, though they often got stir crazy themselves, but Beetlejuice was like a hyperactive firecracker. Keeping him in one house without going completely insane was going to be difficult.

There was a creak from upstairs, then the sound of heavy, dragging footsteps trudging their way down the wooden steps of the stairway. Lydia nearly jumped out of her seat to go and meet the demon hallways, but Barbara’s cold hand on hers told her to do otherwise. 

Beetlejuice rounded the corner, appearing in the threshold of the kitchen doorway. Though he was dressed in his usual pin-striped outfit, he looked like someone who hadn’t fully woken up yet. He was slouched, shoulders hunched almost to his ears, his eyelids were heavy and half closed, and he just looked, all around, tired. He turned his head to look at the group, eyes trailing up and down each of them, then landing on the plates of food.

And just like a switch had been flipped (or with the literal snap of his fingers) Beetlejuice looked wide awake and his normal self. 

“WHOA-HO! Check this out!” He smiled a toothy grin, sauntering over to the table. “Looks like you guys are having an _eggciting_ breakfast! Eh? Eeehhh???” Beetlejuice smiled, giving a hearty laugh as he threw his head backwards.

Lydia groaned again, rolling her eyes so hard they might fall out of her head. Adam, sitting beside her, pressed a hand to his mouth and gave a genuine giggle.

This made Beetlejuice’s tired eyes practically pop open. “Oh! _Hey, hey!_ The nerd **_does_** have a sense of humor!” The demon lifted off his feet, pressing his hands on the table so he could lean forward towards Adam. 

Adam, leaned back in his chair, still covering his mouth with his hands. “I’m only laughing,” he explained with another giggle. “because I just made a joke just like that.”

 _“Whaaaat???”_ Beetlejuice said with great exaggeration. “We’re on the same wavelength, sexy! This was truly meant to be.”

“ _Beetlejuice_.” Barbara’s voice cut in softly. Lydia watched as the demon turned from Adam to look at her. “Remember the rules? Personal space.”

Beetlejuice stuck his tongue out at her for a quick moment, then sunk into a nearby chair with his arms folded over his chest. Lydia giggled. He almost looked like a toddler who was told ‘no’ when trying to grab a cookie.

“How did you sleep?” Barbara asked

“Eh, pretty okay, I guess. The bed was too soft.” Beetlejuice shrugged. “Made it weird to sleep in. But it was okay."

"And how are you doing?" asked Adam, looking up from his plate.

"What do ya mean?"

"I mean, well, you had a pretty rough day yesterday." The ghost shrugged, scratching his chin a bit nervously. "Finding out about all ... _this_. Couldn't have been nice. I just thought I'd ask how you were holding up with ... you know."

"Being trapped in the one place I don't want to be?" Beetlejuice asked, almost comically. "It's fine. I'm fine. Might do some redecorating in that little room." Lydia opened her mouth to say something. There was no way Beetlejuice was this okay about being trapped in their house, but he cut her off. "So, apart from eating to fill the empty holes in your stomachs. What have you losers been doing?” He asked with a lift of a brow.

“Just breakfast so far. But we figured we might play some board games later, or watch a bit of tv.” Barbara said with a smile, picking up the plates from the table.

“Ugh, sounds _boring_.” The demon grumbled. He leaned back in the chair, making it balance perfectly on its back feet with no effort, but he said nothing more. 

“Hey, you should join us!” Lydia finally spoke up, surprised Beetlejuice cracked an eye open to look at her. “You can make fun of all the ghost hunting shows I watch.” She said with a hopeful smile.

Beetlejuice narrowed his eyes at her, and it made her want to shrink back in her chair. But she didn’t. Instead, Lydia stood up straight, marching Beetlejuice’s glare with her own determined gaze. The demon liked to make fun of things. If she knew any better, she’d say it was one of the many skills in his arsenal. If they could find something they could bond over, maybe they could find a way to live with one another.

“ _Eeehh_ , makin’ fun of breathers who get scared by the wind could be fun.” Beetlejuice started, breaking their stare off and looking like he was genuinely thinking about it. “And since I’ve got nothin’ be-“ The demon stopped mid-sentence and the chair came back to the ground with a _thunk_ , after which he quickly stood back up. Eyes darting this way and that.

At first, Lydia didn’t know what happened. She recognized the expression on Beetlejuice’s face, and definitely recognized the seasick green color of his hair. What she hadn’t realized was that Barbara had gotten up from the table and walked over to the sink. And after placing the dishes in the sink, promptly turned on the running water.

Lydia watched as Beetlejuice spun around and after a quick moment, gave the biggest and most exasperated groan, running his hands from the top of his face down to his chin.

 _“Jesus, Babs._ ” Beetlejuice grumbled, his hair returning to its normal (was it bad that purple was his new normal?) shade of purple. “Of _course_ you guys have running water.”

“Did you ... think we didn’t?” Adam asked curiously. 

“Do I look like a guy who took the time to figure out if your shower ran?” The demon placed a hand over his chest, almost offended.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” The faucet was turned lower as Barbara spoke.

“Didn’t get startled. And _ugh_ , it’s fine. Don’t make a big deal out of it.” Beetlejuice shrugged. “Just ... I dunno, warn me next time.”

“Do you want to make that a rule?” Lydia asked, piping up.

“What?”

“Do you want that to be one of the rules?” She said, more clearly. “To say something before we turn on the water.”

“ _Pssshhh!_ I don’t care.” Beetlejuice said with a roll of his eyes. “Sure, add it if you want. I won’t object.” He gestured vaguely with his hand, slipping his other into his pocket before walking back out of the room.

Lydia turned to the Maitlands, both holding concerned expressions, and gave them both a shrug of her shoulders. As she went to follow Beetlejuice, Adam got up and walked over to the list on the fridge, no doubt about to write down the new rule. 

She quickly made her way into the living room. That certainly was odd. She wanted to ask Beetlejuice if he were afraid of water, but with how much pushing she had been doing recently, she figured that was something he would have to tell her himself.

Beetlejuice had sat himself down on the couch, but very close to the arm on one side. Lydia took this as a pretty good signal and took the seat on the other side. The two of them were close, but not close enough to invade each other’s cushions. She leaned down to grab the remote and went to turn on one of many, many ghost hunting shows she enjoyed. She enjoyed the silly shows for two reasons. One; she loved them before they moved to the new house, since she used to watch them with her mother, and two; now that she actually lived with ghosts, it was easy to see what was fake or exaggerated. 

Of course, Lydia didn’t want to watch the show just to make fun of it. She had the volume turned down just enough so that they could talk if they wanted to. And she really, _really_ wanted to talk to Beetlejuice.

The demon snickered at something that was happening on screen, but Lydia’s mind was swirling with ideas on what to say or what to ask. Should she just ask him right out of the gate why he got so mad at her? Or apologize again? Or ask if there was anything she could do to make it up to him?

“Hey, about ... about what happened,” She began cautiously.

Beetlejuice kept his gaze forward, his chin resting on his fist.

“I - I want you to know that ... this isn’t what I wanted, really. I didn’t - I didn’t think this would happen.” Lydia explained softly.

“Yeah well,” Beetlejuice’s voice was gruff and low, as if he were attempting to whisper, and was doing a really bad job of it. “Life, and death, don’t really work out the way we want it. I should know.”

"I'm sorry your mom changed the rules." she said.

"She's always doing things like that. It's probably just punishment for me being alive and then getting her killed. I'm used to it."

“I’m sorry you didn’t get to live very long.” Lydia told him, turning to see if she could get him to look at her. "If you had just told me that's what was bothering you, I never would've ..." She trailed off.

But Beetlejuice kept his gaze forward. His shoulders lifted before sagging back down, almost as if he were sighing.

“Eh, it was kind of underwhelming anyway.” He paused before shaking his head. “Really? **_That’s_** your apology?" He laughed harshly. "Not ‘sorry I killed you’? ‘Sorry you didn’t get to live very long’??” He said this, not loud, but in a tone that would’ve been not very nice if he had raised his voice.

“You were going to kill-“ Lydia started, but Beetlejuice held up his palm in front of her face. 

“Forget it. I don’t care.”

“Obviously you do if it’s upsetting you.”

“I’m sure killing a living, breathing flesh bag is pretty upsetting to you too, Lyds. But you don’t see me digging into your thoughts.”

Lydia blinked at him, recoiling just a bit. Beetlejuice crossing his arms over his chest as she turned back towards the television. 

Stabbing Beetlejuice through the back had not been as easy as she thought it would have been. She thought it’d be like butter, like in a cheesy horror film. Just easily stabbing him though. No big deal. But it had been hard. Beetlejuice was a pretty built guy, it turned out. She had to squeezed her eyes shut and pushed as hard as she could until she felt the end of the bad art stand _clunk_ against the carpet. 

Lydia’s eyes trailed over to the spot. 

It had taken them hours to clean up the mess she had made.

“Hey,” Beetlejuice’s voice broke through her thoughts. “I just said forget it.”

“I don’t think I can.” Lydia said, her voice wobbling as she looked at Beetlejuice once more.

Finally, the demon sighed and turned to face her. His eyes were sunken, and they almost looked as though they shook with emotion.

“Then ... then forget it for now. Like Adam said we ... we be honest, but in our — our own time.” He told her softly, almost using a kind voice. His hand trailed up and tugged at his dress shirt. “I really … really don’t want to talk about it right now.”

Lydia nodded, reaching up to wipe her sleeve under her eyes.

“ _Hey_ , don’t cry, kiddo. Let’s just make fun of these stupid, faker ghost hunters. I can tell you way more interesting ghost facts than these losers.” He said with a helpful kind of smile.

Lydia laughed, nodding her head with a small smile. “Okay, okay. Go right ahead. I’m listening.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys are chill with a small, sweet kind of chapter. I wanted to sort of give y'all a break from the angst I threw at you for three whole chapters. Plus, I also wanted to give myself a lil break & just write a soft one. The next few will be good ol' house shenanigans, so look forward to those! 
> 
> I also hope you guys are continuing to keep yourselves safe! I'm glad this fic has been cheering so many people up in this trying time. Follow rule #1 of being a ghost "DON'T. LEAVE. THE HOUSE!!"


	10. Getting Comfortable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia watches as Beetlejuice adjusts to the house. Beetlejuice explains his problem with water.

After she and Beetlejuice had their small talk on the couch, Lydia hoped things would go relatively back to normal in the Deetz/Maitland household. Or whatever “normal” indicated for her strange and unusual family. Her father and Delia came back from their jog, and her father even gave Beetlejuice a relatively kind ‘hello’. But Beetlejuice’s hair remained the same, sad violet color.

Now, Lydia didn’t want to repeat her father’s “hurry up, get happy” mentality onto her best ghost friend. She knew how much it hurt. So all she could do was try and make a space where Beetlejuice could get better.

The next day, Beetlejuice stayed in the guest room for the majority of the day. She would pop by and knock on his door to see how he was doing, but would only get an annoyed groan in response. The demon didn’t come out until Adam invited him for dinner, and even then, Beetlejuice hardly touched the food that had been set out for him. Mumbling something about the fact that he didn’t even need to eat.

The next day was relatively the same, except Lydia found Beetlejuice was back on the roof. Carefully making her way outside, she took a seat next to the curled-up demon. In his hands, twisting in turning, was the plastic small toy she had bought him.

“You okay?” She asked concerned.

“ _Mmh_.” Was all the demon responded with.

Lydia let silence hang in the air. She looked up at Beetlejuice’s hair, now a deep shade of blue, and sighed, figuring out what that color meant was easy enough. Being trapped in the house before was fine because the two of them had been having fun scaring people and goofy off, ignoring all of their problems in the process. But now … Beetlejuice had been tricked into being trapped, not only by her, but by his demon of a mother as well.

“Look, I understand that you’re really sad right now.” Lydia started, pulling her knees up to her chest to mimic the demon’s posture.

“I never said I was sad.” Beetlejuice quickly replied.

“You’re in the best moping spot in the world,” Lydia pointed out. “and your hair –“

 _“I DON’T CARE WHAT COLOR MY HAIR IS!”_ Just like that, it flushed red like it had suddenly caught on fire. Beetlejuice squeezed his eyes shut and dug his hands into his hair, gripping it tightly and pulling on it hard. “I don’t care! This hair is stupid!”

“It’s not stupid!” Lydia reached out as Beetlejuice tugged roughly at the roots of his hair. Thankfully, he didn’t flinch away this time, and she slowly pulled one hand away. “I think your hair is the coolest! Do you know how many humans would kill to have color changing hair? We can only dye our hair every few months, but you do it in an instant!”

“Yeah, not by choice.” Beetlejuice grumbled. “And it gives me away.”

“I still think it’s sick.” Lydia stated, metaphorically putting her foot down. The demon turned to look at her, giving her a short ‘thanks for trying’ smile before sitting back up with a sigh.

“My ma used to yell at me for it.”

“Well, your mom sucks.”

That got the demon to laugh. He threw his head back as small giggles escaped him, and Lydia watched as the red slowly dissolved back into a deep purple. The two stayed there for a while longer before Lydia convinced Beetlejuice to come back inside.

The next day she had to go to school, and it felt weird leaving with Beetlejuice back home. She came home to Delia practically freaking out and Beetlejuice doubled over, clucking his stomach as he laughed and laughed and laughed. When Lydia finally got her future step-mom to tell her what happened, it turned out that Beetlejuice had not only scared the pants off the mailman, but he did it in such a way where poor Delia got trapped in the crossfire.

Lydia, unfortunately, wished she could’ve been there to see it.

When her father got home, he said that almost giving the mailman a heart attack counted as attempted murder. Beetlejuice simply blew raspberries at this.

The demon spooking delivery men of any kind became a bit of habit on weekdays. When confronted about it, he simply said “What? I’m haunting his house now and you’re not gonna let me scare people?” Eventually the scaring was limited to sales people and people offering religion.

The next few days consisted of Beetlejuice either being in his room, on the roof, or floating from person to person in the family. Often times he would sit in the attic with the Maitlands, not really saying much with his hands folded over his lap as the two would work on their model. Neither of the ghosts seemed to mind very much, they even sometimes asked him to help out or put on music or something like that. They were small requests, but whenever Lydia joined them, she saw how eager Beetlejuice was to do them.

Once, Delia invited both her and Beetlejuice to pick out special crystals for themselves. Lydia didn’t know what made a crystal “special”, but she asked for one that would get rid of bad dreams anyway. Delia handed Beetlejuice an agate, saying it would help ground him and keep him stable. Lydia almost laughed at the very unamused glance the demon gave Delia, but he pocketed the crystal anyway with a shrug, saying he’d put in on the dresser in the guest room next time he was there.

Not every day was perfect. 

Lydia and Beetlejuice still got into fights. Fights consisting of them arguing about the events that transpired when Beetlejuice first haunted the house. Beetlejuice almost killing Barbara, Lydia tricking him, killing him, the bait and switches, etc. etc. Both of them never actually saying the words “I’m sorry”, but instead opting for excuses on why they thought they were right. Most of these heated arguments had to be broken up by the Maitlands. Adam and Barbara would have to stand in front of Beetlejuice and Lydia respectively, keeping them from lashing out at each other any further.

A week passed, then three, then a whole month with Beetlejuice being trapped in the house. Every few days he would ask Lydia to go stand outside and try to summon him again. It never worked, and Beetlejuice would just hang his head and slump inside.

Eventually, Lydia and Beetlejuice would spend more and more time together. They would watch television or make fun of celebrities. Beetlejuice actually let her paint his nails black, to which he gave an enormous amount of fake gossip to, as if they were in a solon of their own. Delia and Charles coming home from date night were greeted by the two attempting to make some kind of food for the Maitlands. Whatever they were trying to make came out looking like a black blob cast out by God as it sat in front of the giggling and horrified married couple.

Another week or so passed before Lydia developed all the photographs from her camera.

“Check it out! My pictures finished developing!” Lydia raced into the kitchen, happily tossing pictures into the wooden table.  
  
Beetlejuice lifted up his plate to give the teenager more room to work with, then leaned over the photos as she spread them out eagerly.  
  
“Look, look! There’s the graveyard, there’s the old church! Oh! Oh! There’s the tree in front of my school.” Lydia pointed to each photo with her finger as she described them. She lifted her gaze to Beetlejuice for a moment, just to see if he was paying attention. “Oh! And here’s the covered bridge!”

Beetlejuice smiled. “Y’know, I bet the Maitlands could use these for their model.”  
  
She nodded and reached down, carefully pulling a series of photos closer to her and the demon. Several close-up photos of rotting wood, vines, and water were displayed on each frame.  
  
“I went over there one day after school to take some close-up pictures, and they came out really good!” The girl practically squealed. A little out of character for her regular goth persona, but she was excited! She couldn’t help herself.  
  
“Whoa, these are good, kiddo.” Beetlejuice huffed, a bit impressed. He set his plate to the side so he could pick up one of the photos carefully. Lydia watched as he observed some of the others, but he suddenly paused.  
  
Lydia turned her head with curiosity, looking up to see Beetlejuice’s hair take the same, seasick green she’d seen before. She leaned over his shoulder to see which picture he was holding. It was one of the river with water rushing rapidly under the old cover bridge.  
  
“ _Ugh_.” Huffed the demon.   
  
“Are you okay?” Lydia asked, leaning over to get in his field of vision.  
  
“Yeah, I just — not a big fan of water.” Beetlejuice shrugged, obviously trying to pass it off. “‘Cause, ya know, I hate baths.”  
  
She watched as the demon placed the photo down in favor of looking at other, non-bridge, photographs. She bit her bottom lip, weighing her options for a moment before taking a deep breath.  
  
“Are you ... afraid of water?” Lydia asked cautiously.  
  
“Demons aren’t afraid of things.” Beetlejuice said simply.  
  
“Everyone’s afraid of something.” She responded quickly, not believing the statement applied to him for a second.   
  
“Well, I don’t really ... want to talk about it.”  
  
“Come on, your hair looks a sick green every time water even comes up. When we were on the bridge, then with Barbara and the sink, now with just you looking at a picture.” Lydia pointed out. “There’s gotta be something -“  
  
“Kid, do you remember what happened the last time you forced me to talk about something I didn’t want to?” Beetlejuice growled, turning his head to face her. “I’m sure your dad doesn’t want the kitchen destroyed either.”  
  
Lydia gulped. “I’m not forcing you.” She told him. “I’m asking you, as your friend, to talk with me about it.”   
  
Beetle ice narrowed his eyes, more with suspicion than with anger. There was a brief moment where he turned back to the photos, then he sighed and dropped them on the table. The demon leaned back in his chair, rubbing a hand over his dirty face. Lydia took this as her queue to get comfortable, so she quickly took a seat next to him.  
  
“I’ve been dead for ... a while. A demon for a while.” Beetlejuice started. “Um. You saw my ma, she’s like, ancient.” He looked over to Lydia, and she nodded for him to continue. “Uh, well, a long, long, LONG time ago, I can’t - I don’t think I can even remember when, I was ... alive.”  
  
“Whoa, wait.” Lydia held out her hand for him to stop. “Alive, like, **_ALIVE?!_** I thought demons were born as demons.”  
  
“My ma and I got special treatment.” He shrugged with his eyes closed. “We apparently made the cut when we died.”  
  
“And ... you died before?” Lydia asked.  
  
“It’s the only part of being alive once that I remember.” Beetlejuice paused, then gave a somewhat dry laugh. “Haha! That’s kind of sad, isn’t it?”  
  
“Real sad.” She answered, but had no kind of joke in her tone. “How did you ...”  
  
“Water. Obviously.” He said softly, looking at the photos. “Whoever I used to be, Lawrence, I was ... really sad. To be honest, it was probably because of my mom. I’m sure she wasn’t a peach when she was alive either. I must’ve been pretty bad too, if I think about it.” He paused. “I haven’t thought about this stuff in a long while.”  
  
“You can take your time.” Lydia told him, and that actually got him to smile softly.  
  
“So, I was probably a really bad person, and a really depressed person, because one day I uh ... found a bridge and well ...” he trailed off, but placed to fingers on the edge of the table. He made them jump, then he pushed them down. “ _Sploosh_.” Beetlejuice made the noise with no effort to be comical.  
  
“You ...”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Drowned?”  
  
Beetlejuice paused, then he nodded. “Yeah. Don’t remember why I did it.” His voice cracked, and he quickly went to wipe under his nose. “Ma died a while after, called me pathetic and weak for killing myself. Then she cursed me.”  
  
“You’re not weak or pathetic.” Lydia said firmly, placing her fists on her hands.  
  
“Yeah, thanks kid.” Beetlejuice shrugged, sounding tired.  
  
“No, I mean it.” This got him to look up at her. “You’re not. Not in the slightest.”   
  
Beetlejuice smiled a bit, then he turned to the photos. “Rushing water ... it doesn’t sound nice in my ears. Guess it stuck with me more than I gave it credit for.” He picked up the picture of the river and held it under his eyes. “You know, it burned. Burned like Hell, ain’t that ironic? It just fills up your lungs and burns. Makes you want to scream, get air, but if you get carried away, that’s it.”  
  
Lydia stood up, walking over to Beetlejuice. She took a moment to look over at the fridge, and to the list that hung upon it.  
  
“Sorry, didn’t mean to get so dark.” Beetlejuice continued.  
  
“Can I hug you?” Lydia asked suddenly.  
  
“What?”  
  
“You just told me how you died. I want to give you a hug.” She explained.  
  
“Uh, sure, I guess. You don’t have to, b-“ Beetlejuice didn’t get to finish his sentence as Lydia threw her arms over his neck, pulling him close to her. He flinched a bit, but soon grew very still.   
  
The sound of the photo falling softly to the ground was the only thing that broke the silence between them. Lydia squeezed her eyes shut, rubbing her cheek into the demon’s shoulder. They stayed like this for a while, Lydia standing over the sitting demon with her arms wrapped around him. It was only after a while when she finally felt Beetlejuice’s arms on her back.   
  
He gently gave her a pat on the back. “Heh. Thanks, Lydia.” Beetlejuice said softly in a new, sincere voice. “I didn’t know I needed to talk about it.”  
  
Lydia took it as her queue to pull away, looking Beetlejuice in the eyes. “I’m always here if you want to talk about it again.” She leaned down and picked up the photo, placing it back with the others.   
  
“Yeah,” He looked down for a moment, then over her shoulder towards the living room. Lydia thought he looked like he wanted to say something else, but he shook and his head and stood up. “Welp. This was nice, but I’m gonna head on back to my room. I think I need a breather, but not an actually breather like you.” He laughed, bringing down his hand to ruffle her hair.

Lydia smiled, though still concerned about his well-being. But hey, this was pretty good progress. She watched him go with a smile before leaning down to pick up the photograph from the floor. She placed it back upon the table, gathering up the rest of the photos into her hands and made her way towards the stairs.

Beetlejuice was alive once. He died twice. One fo those times was technically her fault, but it’s not like she had a choice. Still, something about it made her heart sink in her chest. She paused in front of his room then blinked when she realized he had actually called the place **_“my room”_**.

Lydia smiled.

Maybe Beetlejuice was finally getting comfortable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapters might be a lil slow on progress because it's finals weeks my dudes! I already have a lot written out for the next chapter, but bear with me in case it's slow! ALSO! Yes! 'tis revealed that Beetlejuice was indeed alive at one point. I've been thinking about this ever since chapter 4. As much as I love the idea of him being born dead, I always thought Beetlejuice looked like a guy who drowned in a river. In BJ canon, people who commit suicide are made into service workers, so that's why I always thought he's a guide / bio exorcist! 
> 
> Once again, I hope you all are staying inside and staying safe! If you're in school like I am, I hope you're doing well in your classes and finishing this semester strong! Hopefully, this fic is giving you a nice little distraction.


	11. Did it Hurt When You Fell?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beetlejuice has a dream and asks the Maitlands something very important.

“So maybe I’ll just try ... **_MURDER!_** ”  
  
With all the rapid fire emotions that had seeped out of Beetlejuice’s now beating heart and into his head, the man spun around the room. He looked at Adam. No good there, he was already dead. But he turned to Charles. A perfect, living flesh bag he could sink his hands into.  
  
His fingers dug into his pocket, trying to search for any kind of knife or sharp object he could use. Clearly, murder was the only option in this situation. It’s not his fault his mother never taught him anything else other than anger.   
  
But after taking one step, then two towards the terrified man, the white hot rage that clouded his eyes suddenly began to fizzle. Wow, emotions really came and went as they pleased, didn’t they? Maybe he wouldn't murder Charles. What would that fix, anyway? Though his momentum did not stop his stride towards the other.  
  
There was suddenly a very blunt pain on the side of his head with a loud **THUD** to accompany it, and Beetlejuice fell to the floor with a grunt. Okay, apparently the living human body can just fall over like a sack of flower. That was good to know. But who hit him? Beetlejuice pressed both hands on the floor, attempting to push himself up.  
  
Then there was a jab in his back.  
  
And then there was incredible, immense pain as it shot through his body, tearing through the side of his spine. The rod pieced his lung, then ripped through his rib cage, making an awful cracking sound in his ears. It then tore through and burst from the front of his chest.  
  
And then Beetlejuice sat up, and he **_SCREAMED._**  
  
He doesn’t know if he screamed because of the pain (because holy God/Satan, there was a **_LOT_** of pain) or from the sheer sight of the piece of bad art sticking straight of out his chest. _Lydia_. The little monster of a kid. He didn’t need to turn around to know it was her holding the other end of the (metaphorical) knife.   
  
_“Ah ha ... okay! Okay!”_ His voice was loud, louder than he would expect it to be, but it shook terribly. He was always one to be loud when he got scared, and right now he was terrified. Beetlejuice managed to slowly, very painfully, push himself into a standing position. Each movement sent waves of red hot pain coursing through his body.   
  
_“I see what you did t - there! That’s a — neat trick!”_ A good trick. A really good trick and he fell for it hook line and sinker. His legs wobbled beneath him as suddenly the weight of this new body became very apparent. Someone said something, someone else responded. Something about bad art. But he couldn’t hear them clearly. His eyes lulled back for a moment and he had to blink to snap them back open.   
  
Beetlejuice tried to gasp. Tried to get some kind of air into the new lungs. But something got caught, and he ended up giving a very wet cough instead. He knew the feeling all too well. His lungs were filling up with icky, dark liquid. Blood and whatever colorful things that made up the human body were pouring into his punctured lung.  
  
He couldn’t breathe.

He just started breathing and even he knew how important it was. Now he couldn’t get any air into his lungs.  
  
 ** _HE COULDN’T BREATHE._**  
  
Yet, as he looked down at the rod protruding from his chest. He couldn’t help but understand that this was what he deserved.   
  
It still hurt though.  
  
 _“That ... feels ...”_ he choked out, lifting up his shaking hands. He pressed both on the end of the weapon. _“Meaningful.”_ And with whatever strength the new body had left, Beetlejuice pushed it out of him.  
  
Turns out, that long metal rod was the only thing keeping him standing, and quite suddenly, Beetlejuice crumpled under his own weight and fell flat onto the carpet floor. There was a moment where he heard the commotion above him.  
  
And then everything went black.  
  
  
  
Beetlejuice shot up of bed with a yelp. The large, quilted blanket tangled around his body like a snake, trapping him in place. The demon squirmed, kicking and lashing out with all his might as if he were still fighting in his dream. He only fully woke up when he found himself teetering to the side and falling right off the bed. He landed with a **THUD** , his temple colliding with the floor and making him give a pained groan.  
  
Morning light poured in from the window as Beetlejuice laid half on the floor with his legs still up on the bed. One arm was above his head as the other clutched tightly to the hoodie material over his chest. It still hurt. Was it supposed to still hurt? Or was it just the memory of the pain that was making it sting? His chest, once rapidly rising and falling, was now beginning to slow as he realized he was (relatively) safe in his own space. Slowly, he blinked his eyes, looking up at the perfect white ceiling of the guest room.   
  
“What the Hell?” He asked softly, knowing the answer. He had a bad dream. A straight up nightmare of his own murder. A murder at the hands of his best friend.   
  
_Why?_  
  
 _Why did she kill him?_  
  
“Beetlejuice?” There came a knock at the door, but all the demon did was crane his neck to look at the wood. “It’s Delia, are you okay?”  
  
“Yeah!” No. No, he was absolutely _**not**_ okay. He just had a very vivid, very real feeling dream about his death. “I fell!” He called anyway. “I’m cool!”  
  
“Okay, if you’re hurt, just give a yelp!” And the sound of heels click clacking faded down the hallway.  
  
Beetlejuice took a deep breath and sighed. He unzipped the hoodie and looked down at his chest.  
  
A scar of a gaping hole stared back at him.  
  
He hated that thing.  
  
Why did the Maitlands get to stay perfect and beautiful while he had to carry around a death scar? It wasn’t fair in the slightest.   
  
Beetlejuice kicked off the covers with a growl, standing up and marching over to the chair and rapidly changing out of his makeshift pajamas to throw back on his much more comfortable and familiar suit. He struggled with the suspenders and ended up leaving the tie draped around his neck. His hands were shaking far too much to tie it right now.  
  
For a moment he paused, reaching into his jacket pocket and grabbing the small card that his mother had written for him when she first cursed him. _Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice._ He stared at the words for a while, thinking about the fact that he couldn’t actually tell anyone his middle name even if they asked. He blinked. Maybe, like other things, the rules of that had changed too?  
  
The demon stood up a bit straighter, pushing back his shoulders and puffing out his chest as he thought of the words he wanted to say.  
  
“Hi,” he said softly, as to not be heard through the walls. He stuck out the hand that wasn’t holding the card out in front of him, as if going to shake someone’s hand. “I’ll be your guide. My name is -“ but it got caught in his throat before he could even sound out the first letter. But he still tried again, thrusting out his arm once more. “My name is -“ This time his chest squeezed painfully, the curse pulsing through him. The demon gritted his teeth, speaking slowly as he tried to get out the sentence. “My name ... is —!”   
  
Beetlejuice nearly tumbled forward as his head grew uncomfortably light from the rush of pain that swept through him. He growled and shoved the card into his pocket, letting both his hands plant firmly against the vanity. The demon squeezed his eyes painfully shut. “My name — _nngh_. B - double e - t - l - e- j - u - i - c - e. My name is -“ this time, he nearly fell back over. Beetlejuice sucked in a deep breath, trying to regain his balance.  
  
Okay. So. He still couldn’t say his name. Thanks Ma.   
  
And he certainly didn’t want to go introducing himself as Lawrence. No. No. That was HER name for him. That was a bad name. That wasn’t HIS name. She called him Lawrence to make him feel horrible, to draw him in with kind words before throwing him against a wall or down a bit. Lawrence made him think of her. Beetlejuice was his name, and she wouldn’t even let him say it.   
  
He sighed.

There was no helping it right now.

The demon, leaving his tie loosely around his neck, put on his pointy shoes and stepped out of his room. He must’ve slept through the morning, it seemed, as the smell of breakfast food was nowhere to be found in the air. He shrugged. Breakfast food was great, sure, and probably the closest he’ll ever get to experiencing what Heaven felt like, but it wasn’t the end of the world if he missed it for today.

Though, having comfort food after the nightmare he just had would’ve been a bit nice.

Beetlejuice, for one, had absolutely no idea what he was going to do that day. Weekends, it turned out, were boring as Hell. And one could only watch the same horror movies so many times.

Beetlejuice sighed, reaching the bottom of the stairs with his hands in his pockets. He took a moment to look into the living room before walking past the couch and towards the center of the space. He paused, looking down at the new rug.

Delia said they had to change it because they couldn’t get out a bloodstain.

Was that his?

Did he bleed?

It had all happened so fast. Beetlejuice couldn’t remember if there was a puddle when he stood back up.

It had happened **_too_** fast. He didn’t even process being alive. Emotions had rushed through his heart and skull before he even had a second thought. And then in a blink of an eye, it was all gone.

Funny how fragile humans were.

“Oh! Beetlejuice, you’re up!” Came a happy voice from behind him. Beetlejuice turned to see Lydia walking through the door. She was wearing a large black sunhat and overalls with green gloves and boots that matched. She definitely didn’t look like her usual self. “Me and Delia are gardening out in the front lawn.”

It was then that the demon noticed the small hand spade in Lydia’s hand. Though the girl kept talking, Beetlejuice’s eyes remained on it.

“Hey, if you want to come out and sit on the porch, we can put a chair out for you.” Lydia smiled, seemingly not noticing his eyes. “We’re planting all kinds of, I guess, spiritual plants.” She shrugs, walking closer and gesturing wildly with the spade as she talked. “Delia wanted them and I guess they’re supposed to protect the house from bad vibes or someth-“

“Stop!” Beetlejuice suddenly shot out his hands in front of him, and the girl (thankfully) stopped in his tracks just a few feet away from him.

“What? What? Did I bring in a bug?” Quickly, Lydia began turning around, trying to see if anything was on her.

“No! It’s just –” The demon pulled his arms close to himself, and he was gritting his teeth so hard they hurt. “Just don’t come any closer to me!”

“Why?” Lydia looked at him, concerned. “Are you okay?” There was a pause before. “You’re hair. You’re scared. What’s wrong?”

“Scared?!” Beetlejuice’s brows knotted tightly. “You’re holding a knife!”

“Knife?” Lydia’s shoulders dropped, then he lifted up the spade in her hands. “It’s a garden tool.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“I mean, yeah, any tool is dangerous if you don’t handle them properly.” She pointed out.

“And how is Delia trusting **_you_** to handle it properly?” Beeltejuice shuttered, pulling his hands to clench the shirt material over his chest.

Lydia simply shrugged. “Because … I’m responsible?”

“You’re a _murderer!_ Who knows how much damage you could do with that!” Beetlejuice suddenly snapped at her.

“I’m a murderer?!” Lydia gasped, gripping the spade tightly in her hand. “Excuse me? I did what I had to do to save my family!”

“Oh, there you go again, little miss hero!” The demon rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Good work. You saved the day. Hope you’re happy.”

“I am!”

Beetlejuice blinked before smiling wickedly. “OH! Happy you **_killed me,_** are you?!”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“No, no! You said it! No take backs!” He made his way in a wide circle around her, keeping his distance until he got to the staircase.

“Beetlejuice, don’t leave.” Lydia quickly followed.

“You’ve made sure of that, haven’t you?” The demon shot back. He looked at Lydia, the same twinge in his chest happening when he saw her visibly deflate. “Shame those flowers can’t protect you from the ‘bad vibes’ you bring into this house yourself.” Beetlejuice growled, and took a few steps up the stairs backwards, just so he wasn’t turning his back to Lydia again.

Lydia narrowed her eyes at him and walked back through the front door, slamming it behind her. The demon huffed and turned to make his way back up the stairs.

He needed the roof.

He stomped through the hallway and through the attic door, which was left open. Beetlejuice had walked all the way to the window without being stopped before he heard a voice from behind him.

“Beetlejuice?” It was Adam. “Are you okay.”

“M’fine.” The demon gripped at the bottom of the window, keeping his back turned to the ghosts. He pushed the window open with a grunt.

“Where are you going?”

“The roof, duh.” He answered dryly.

“Oh.” Then came Barbara’s voice. Beetlejuice turned to see her over by the work desk. She looked like she was painting something. “Well, you can’t go out with your tie like that.” She smiled before setting down her paint brush and standing up.

“What?” Beetlejuice asked with a tilt of his head. He looked down, not realizing his tie was still loose.

“Your tie isn’t – well – tied.” Barbara smiled, walking over to him gracefully. She pointed to the piece of fabric before looking at Beetlejuice. “May I?”

“ _Uuuuhhh_.” The demon held his hands up, bringing them close to his chest. Not really knowing how to respond, he looked towards Adam for help.

“Oh, don’t ask me.” Adam giggled, waving his hands back and forth. “I never learned how to tie one. She always did it for me.”

“Uh, then yeah, sure, I guess.” Beetlejuice cleared his throat. “Go for it.”

The woman smiled, and Beetlejuice immediately felt his face getting hot. He looked away awkwardly as her hands reached down to adjust his tie to sit better around his neck. As she worked, he tried looking anywhere but her, as if looking at her would mess up the process … or something stupid like that. He also kept his hands back, being very careful not to touch her, no matter how badly he wanted to.

“There you go.” Barbara sing-songed the words, giving the tie and Beetlejuice’s chest a small pat. “All done.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Beetlejuice took the tie in his hands as she took a step back. He doesn’t think he’s ever done his own tie this nicely.

“I like your hair.”

“What’s that?”

“Your hair, it’s pink. I really like it.”

“Oh. Uh!” Beetlejuice instantly went to run his hands through his hair, as if it would do any good with making the color change. “Great. Well, thanks.”

“Do you want to help me paint?” Barbara asked quickly, making the demon stop in his tracks as he turned back towards the window. “It’s just that, Adam and I have so many more things to make for the town model, it would be really nice to have a third set of hands.

Beetlejuice paused. He usually leapt at the opportunity to help the Maitlands, but was he really feeling up to it right now? He looked out the window and onto the roof. The perfect moping spot that was just calling to him. But of course, the roof would always be there. Who knows when Barbara would ask him for help again.

“Yeah. Sure. I can help out.” And with that, the demon reached up and shut the attic window.

Barbara clapped her hands together and lead Beetlejuice over to the work desk. She set out another chair for him and showed him the small pieces she was painting. Most of them were lamp posts, fire hydrants, mailboxes, and other things that littered the city. She showed the demon which colors went to which and handed him his own paint brush to work with.

The demon paused before he started. When was the last time he ever made something? Sure, he can name tons of things he destroyed. But when did he actually make something? Or make something pretty.

He couldn’t remember, and with a shrug, started to paint. The next half hour or so was mostly Adam and Barbara talking to each other, occasionally asking Beetlejuice for his imput on something. The demon mostly observed the couple in their space, just like he used to do before they died. He watched how Adam worked; careful, almost meticulously, and very, very precise. While Barbara was more on the creative side. She knew what she wanted to make, and knew exactly how to make it pretty. It was a good balance between the two. They both had something to bring to the table.

But watching them work. Watching them create and paint and laugh and hum along to the music that softly played in the background, it made him think.  
  
“Did it hurt?” Beetlejuice said softly, almost soft enough to where he hoped the Maitlands didn’t hear it.  
  
“When we fell from heaven?” Adam giggled, leaning over the model town with a magnifying glass. He was trying to gently place a take bush down with a pair of tweezers.  
  
“When you fell through your floorboards.” Beetlejuice stated a bit more firmly.  
  
Adam let the magnifying glass fall, then he stood up straight to look to his wife. Barbara had stopped painting and was now looking over at Beetlejuice with a concerned expression.  
  
“What ... makes you ask?” She questioned, though there was nothing but kind curiosity in her voice.  
  
Beetlejuice couldn’t meet either of their eyes. His hands were folded between his knees and his shoulders lifted up so that they touched his ears. He almost felt ashamed of even thinking of the question. But he shrugged.  
  
“Dunno. I was just ... thinking about it. That’s all.” He said gruffly. Then he sighed. “I just ...”  
  
“It hurt.” Adam exhaled though his nose, running a hand through his short hair. He walked over to the two and placed a hand on Barbara’s shoulder, which he then placed her own over. “For a moment. We felt the impact. At least I did.”  
  
“It was like getting bit by a misquote. It was sharp.” Barbara continued. “But, we died pretty quickly, so it didn’t last.” She paused, the looked over at Beetlejuice. “Did it hurt when you died?”  
  
He blinked, not realizing liquid had gathered there and was now rolling down his cheeks. He lifted his sleeves and ran them over his cheeks in attempt to dry them.  
  
“Yeah.” Beetlejuice nodded. “Hurt a whole lot. I couldn’t breathe.” He explained, finally looking up to meet the concerned expressions of the Maitlands.   
  
“Oh, Beetlejuice. I’m so sorry.” Barbara said softly. She held up a hand, then paused. “May I put my hand on your shoulder?”  
  
How was Beetlejuice going to say no to a kind request like that? He nodded softly as a yes and almost melted as the ghost’s soft hand pressed on his shoulder.   
  
“We didn’t know what Lydia and Charles were planning.” She explained. “I don’t think they understood it either.”  
  
“I don’t know -“ Beetlejucie’s voice cracked with emotion, and he tried to press his hand to his mouth like it would stop it. “I don’t know why she did it. I mean, I know I was angry and I said I would hurt someone, but -“  
  
“I think ... I think she thought it was the only thing she could do.”   
  
“But I couldn’t **_do_** anything!” Beetlejuice suddenly sobbed, water pooling around his eyes and tumbling out onto his cheeks. “I was a useless flesh bag! It’s not like I could actually hurt anyone.”  
  
“What do you mean?” Asked Adam in the same kind voice as his wife.  
  
“Look at me!” The demon spread out his arms. “Sure, I’ve got powers, but I’m not a super fit guy. Unless tap dancing counts. But I’m pathetic looking! As soon as I was human, all of that was gone!” He fumbled through his words, gesturing wildly with his hands. “There were _five_ of you! You could’ve - you could’ve just -!”  
  
“We could’ve just overpowered you. Kicked you out of the house.” Adam whispered, as if realizing this himself. “ _Oh. Oh, man._ ” He turned from the two, pressing his hand to his face and pushing his glasses up.   
  
“Beetlejuice.” Barbara started again. “Lydia thought killing you was the only way. And that was wrong. We thought you were this emotionless monster. We were wrong to dehumanize you. You are a _person_.” She emphasized this by looking into his eyes. “You _ **did not** _deserve to die.”  
  
“I -“ Beetlejuice sucked in a shuttering gasp. He doesn’t think Barbara knows how much the statement effected him. She must’ve, otherwise she wouldn’t be looking at him like that. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for — I didn’t want to —“ he looked down at himself, realizing that his suit was an absolute mess. His shaking hands nervously went to go fix it.  
  
Collar, lapel, sleeves, cuffs, tie, _collar, lapel, sleeves, cuffs, tie, collar, lapel, sleeves, cuffs, tie, tie, tie, tie._ _He was twisting his tie. He tie wasn’t tight enough. It wasn’t straight enough. It wasn’t tight enough. He pulled down on his tie until it was uncomfortably tight. He was still twisting his tie. Wringing his tie over and over and over and over. His eyes were blurry. He couldn’t see anymore. He bent over in his seat, his stomach touching his knees as he did so._  
  
He sucked in a breath and let it out as a choked sob. He tried blinking and it made it worse. Hot and burning tears tumbled out of his eyes and down his cheeks. He blinked again, trying to make it go away, but it only made it worse.  
  
 _“I didn’t want to die.”_  
  
“Oh, Beetlejuice.” Adam was suddenly on his knees before him. “Hey, hey. You’re okay.” He said softly, piercing the cotton that seemed to have clogged the demons ears. “Beetlejuice, can I — can I hug you?”  
  
This made Beetlejuice’s head lift up, making him look Adam right in the eyes.  
  
“I don’t — _why?_ ”  
  
“I promise I won’t hurt you. But I think you really need one right now.” Said the ghost with his eyebrows knotted with concern.  
  
Beetlejuice didn’t know why, but he found himself nodding.  
  
And slowly, Adam pushed himself off the floor and wrapped his arms around Beetlejuice. The demon shuttered a gasp, not familiar at all with the sensation. Lydia had hugged him before, and it made him flinch. This was somewhere on the same level. Then another pair of arms wrapped around him and Beetlejuice found himself looking up at the ceiling with both Adam and Barbara’s heads resting on each of his shoulders.   
  
The demon sucked in a breath. He held it there for a moment.   
  
And then the demon cried.  
  
At first it was just a whine, a wheezing sound from his throat, but it erupted into a long, drawn out sob. His shoulders shook, and he began to bawl.  
  
“How am I — ever gonna be friends with Lydia again!?” He cried.  
  
“Do you want to be?” said Barbara into his ear.  
  
“I do! I want to so badly!” He admitted. “She was my only friend, and I - I know she hurt me, and I’m terrified she’ll do it again, but I deserved it, I hurt her and I tried to hurt you, Barbara and I’m so - so freaking sorry -!”  
  
“Don’t - don’t worry about that.” She hushed him. “Please don’t ever worry about that again.”  
  
“But I hurt you!”   
  
“And I _forgive_ you.”  
  
That made the demon cry out again, almost like he got punched in the gut. Because God, he didn’t deserve that. He didn’t deserve any kind words Barbara offered him. He didn’t deserve her forgiveness.  
  
“If you think you can forgive Lydia, you should try.” Adam took over, gently rubbing circles into Beetlejuice’s back.  
  
“I don’t - want to be alone again.” Beetlejuice whispered softly. “Lydia was my first friend. I want to make things work. Things were working when I was on the roof, but - but I ruined everything. I got mad at her.”  
  
“You got mad at her because she did something you weren’t comfortable with.” Adam explained. “I think what you two need is to have a talk. A real talk where you can work these things out.”  
  
Beetlejuice nodded, lifting up a third hand to wipe away at his face.  
  
“Can you — can you two be there?”  
  
There was a pause, and he guessed that the ghosts were sharing a look at each other. A look that let them see what the other was thinking without any words.  
  
“We will be if she wants us there too.” Barbara gently patted Beetlejuice’s back.

The demon nodded, finally raising his hands and gripping tightly to the Maitlands' backs. 

"Please don't let go." He asked, sounding extremely pathetic and not like himself at all.

"We won't." They said almost in sync, as if they planned it. And Beetlejuice leaned down to press his forehead into their shoulders.

_Please._

_**Please**. _

_D_ _on't let me go._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, I can remove the implied beetlands tag & just put beetlands in. Hope y'all enjoyed reading the sweet, sweet hurt/comfort because I sure loved writing it. I'm glad I finally got to write out Beetlejuice's thoughts on his death, they've been in my brain for a while. This demon can fit so much emotional trauma in him.
> 
> Also! It's finals week! So progress on the next chapter is gonna have to wait. Idk if it'll be late, but I gotta focus on getting the rest of my school stuff done first.
> 
> As always, fellow ghosts: DON'T LEAVE THE HOUSE!!!!


	12. Father & Daughter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia's thoughts run wild, Charles tries to bring everything to a steady pace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MY FINALS ARE OVER COME GET Y'ALL JUICE!!!!
> 
> (Thank you for being patient with this chapter! I wanted to take a breather after school was done & play some ACNH) 
> 
> I don't write Charles enough, so I corrected that!

It started raining during the afternoon. Lydia and Delia had to come inside in the middle of their gardening. Her future step-mom said it was nothing to worry about. The rain was good for the new plants, and they could always finish the rest tomorrow or if it stopped raining.  
  
But Lydia had wanted to stay outside of the house. She needed something to do to distract her from the fight she and Beetlejuice had earlier.   
  
If you could call it a fight. One could call it an altercation. Or a quarrel. Or something else along those lines.   
  
The main point is, it was too early to come inside.  
  
So Lydia kicked off her muddy boots and dragged her way back up the stairs and towards her room. Beetlejuice’s door was open, not that she cared. After a small speak inside as she passed it, she could tell he wasn’t in his room either.   
  
Not that she cared.  
  
Lydia turned her nose up to no one in particular and marched into her room, shutting the door maybe a bit too loudly behind her. She peeled off the wet work clothes and slipped back into normal Lydia clothes. Black dress, black tights, black socks, black everything. Then she flopped onto her bed. Lydia gave an annoyed groan.  
  
She didn’t know why she was still being so upset about this. She and Beetlejuice got into fights sometimes, but everything normally turned out okay in the end.   
  
It was nothing to fret over.  
  
...  
  
So why wouldn’t her fretting go away??  
  
Lydia sighed, grabbing one of her velvet black pillows and shoved it onto her face.   
  
Maybe it was what Beetlejuice said. Maybe it was what he’s been saying for a long time. He had died. Right in front of her. He had fallen to his knees and keeled over flat on his face before he stopped breathing. She had looked down at the piece of bad art in her hands and didn’t even think twice before explaining her clever plan to Delia and the Maitlands.  
  
She didn’t think twice about it.   
  
Beetlejuice became a living, breathing person. And she killed him without hesitation.  
  
But Lydia squeezed her eyes shut, telling herself what she’d always told herself. Beetlejuice had been dangerous. He was going to hurt someone and it was the only way to stop him.   
  
It was fine. It didn’t count. Sure, there had been blood strains on the carpet. Sure, they had to throw the art out the next day. Sure, Lydia couldn’t stop thinking about the moment Beetlejuice had screamed in her face about being forced back into the house he was murdered in. But it was fine. It’s not like it was affecting her. She was strange and unusual. Always was and always would be. What was a little demonic murder to add onto it?  
  
Except it wasn’t ... demonic murder.   
  
She hadn’t killed Beetlejuice when he was a demon. She killed a human being.  
  
But it was for a good reason! They call it ‘self-defense’ for a reason!  
  
 _Ugh! There her mind went again._  
  
And so on and so on the cycle would turn and turn and turn.

Lydia, for one, didn’t like it when her mind was at war with itself. Everything used to be so easy. Black and White. This was one way, and other things were another way. She sighed, pulling her pillow off her face so she could stare up at the ceiling.

Her mom would’ve known what to do. She would’ve told Lydia how she was meant to feel about the situation. Things would be much easier if Lydia could just _talk_ to her mom, but as strange and unusual her life was now, talking to Dead Mom seemed too far-fetched. Not to mention, very, very potentially dangerous. She would have to wait until the sweet void of the Netherworld to come for her in order to talk to her mom. And it was something, for once, she would be happy to wait for.

“Lydia?” Her father’s voice accompanied the knock at her door before it creaked open. In popped Charles’ head, he gave her a brief smile before walking into her room without her protest. Charles wrung his hands together, a gesture she knew all too well was when he wanted to talk about something.

He walked over to her bed and waved his hand in a sweeping motion. Lydia took this as her queue to sit up and move over to the side, to which Charles took a seat on the black comforter. She hugged the pillow to her chest as her father looked around the room, still folding and unfolding his hands.

“What is it?” She asked, drawing her voice to sound annoyed at him.

“Well, I was hoping we could talk about something.” Charles said, turning his head to give her a concerned smile.

Lydia paused, pressing the pillow to her face and shutting her eyes for a moment. She didn’t have Dead Mom to talk to, but she **_did_** have Alive Dad. Lydia nodded and sat up turning to pull her legs in criss-cross before facing her dad.

“Okay. I’m listening. What’s up?”

“It might be a little personal, so just tell me if I’m being too … forward.” Charles cleared his throat before continuing. “When you and Delia were outside, I was in my office cleaning and well, I heard Beetlejuice get up, and you walk in and …”

 _“Oh no.”_ Lydia shoved her face in her pillow. She’d never felt so embarrassed. Her father had heard all of that, didn’t he? “You _heard_ us fighting?”

“Bits and pieces, just the small parts!” He said, but took a pause to scratch his beard. “Alright. All of it, actually.” He gave a nervous laugh and Lydia groaned with unease. “Hey, it’s alright, Lydia.” Charles reassured, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I just wanted to know if you wanted to talk about it.”

Lydia pulled her face out of her pillow to look at her father.

Charles sighed. “ ** _I_ **want to talk about it, Lydia.”

The little girl nodded. “Okay. Okay. What about it do you want to talk about?”

Charles smiled, then he paused. In a very goofy-like fashion, he pulled up his feet too and matched Lydia’s posture, criss-cross and all. It made Lydia crack a smile, which was probably his intention. Seeing her very business-savvy father sitting like a child, it was a sight to relieve some of the heavy tension in the air.

“It’s just that, well, Beetlejuice can say hurtful things.” Charles began with a shrug. “But, then again … so can _we_.” He paused, waiting for Lydia so process the sentence before continuing. “Lydia, our lives are filled with more death than the average household would like to admit.” He continued. “Your mother, for starters. But the Maitlands and Beetlejuice died in this house.”

“What are you saying?” Lydia asked with a tilt of her brow.

“It … it took a long time, longer than I would’ve hoped, to see things from your perspective.” He explained. “I only wanted to see my point of view. I thought that I was right the whole time. But when I almost lost you in the Netherworld, it really made me put things into place.” Charles sighed, reaching to rub his hand against the back of his neck. “Hold on, I’m not explaining this right.” He leaned forward, pressing his hands over his mouth as he tried to think.

“It’s okay.” Lydia reassured, squeezing her pillow a little closer to herself. She was thankful that her father was even trying to talk to her about feelings and emotions and things like that. She would’ve hated it if things didn’t change after their first encounter with Beetlejuice.

“Alright. Here’s what I’m trying to say.” He reached forward and gently tapped her knee. “Beetlejuice called you a murderer-“  
  
“I’m _not_.” Lydia stated quickly and firmly.

“I didn’t say you were.” Charles insisted. “But I think, to _him_ , what happened when he became human affected him a great deal.”

“He was going to kill you, Dad! Plus, you and I made the plan together.” Lydia pointed out.

“I know, I know.” He nodded. “And I know it was going to be either of us who was going to stab him. I just happened to be the person he went after. I would've preferred if it had been me who did it instead of you. But you … **_we_** , need to see things from how he is seeing them. You said it yourself, he isn’t the same Beetlejuice as when we first met him. His hair hasn’t been green in months.”

Lydia grumbled, her eyebrows knotting together with thought. “What if – what if I don’t want to see things from his perspective?”

“Well,” Charles sighed, gently rubbing her knee. “then that doesn’t make you a very considerate friend, does it?”

Lydia looked up. Emotionally vulnerable Charles was great, but he made pointed out things that hit the nail right on the head. She sighed, pressing her face into her pillow once more while she thought things over.

“When you and your – and Delia were outside, Beetlejuice went back upstairs.” Charles continued. “I couldn’t hear all of it, but he and the Maitlands talked for a while. Lydia, whatever is going on between you and Beetlejuice, it’s affecting you _both_.” He let out a breath through his nose, leaning down to press a kiss on top of Lydia’s head. “He can’t leave. I just want to make sure you’re happy. I want to make sure you’re both happy in this situation.”

Lydia paused and looked up at her father scrunching up her nose. This got Charles to wave out his hands in front of him in defense.

“Now, now! This isn’t a ‘you have to be happy, right now’ situation. I don’t want to do that to you again. What I think you should do is just … _talk_ things out with him.” He clarified quickly, almost fumbling over his words, which got Lydia to let out a small laugh. “I can even be there if it makes you more comfortable?”

“You want to sit in while me and Beej have a heart-to-heart?”

“If it makes you comfortable.”

She paused, fiddling with a piece of frayed fabric on her pillow. It’s not a conversation she was looking forward too, but like it or not, it seemed like it was inevitable at this point. She and Beetlejuice had good moments, great moments even, but there was an underlining tension that felt like it could bubble over the surface at any point.

“I want to keep being friends with him.” Lydia said with a frown. “But I’m really scared to talk about it.”

“I was very scared to talk about Emily with you.” Charles tilted his head with a smile. “But you helped me through it. I believe in you, Lydia. If anyone can talk about something sensitive like this, it’s going to be you.”

This made her reach forward and wrap her arms around her father’s neck, to which he returned the hug and placed his hands on her back. Lydia pressed her nose into Charles’ shoulder, taking in a deep breath. She had missed this. As much as she missed her Dead Mom, she missed moments like this with her father even more.

“Thanks, Dad.”

“You’re very welcome, dear.”

They stayed like this until there was a soft knock at Lydia’s door. The two looked up to see Barbara with a soft smile leaning in the doorway.

“Hello, you two.” She waved, maybe a little bit nervously, no doubt thinking she may have ruined a moment. “Do you think … well, after dinner, uh, Adam and I want to have a family meeting.”


	13. Inevitable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The family talks about miscommunication and you guessed it, death.

At dinner, Lydia watched as Beetlejuice did nothing but nervously nudge the fork in front of him with his finger. At some point, the clanking of the silverware must’ve gotten too troublesome and he got up to go sit on the couch. Lydia knew something was wrong, and that this family meeting wasn’t going to be as chipper as Barbara had made it sound. 

The meal was finished in silence and Charles placed the dishes in the sink. Scrubbing and cleaning would have to wait, and he placed a hand on Lydia’s shoulder before leading her into the living room. Delia, Adam, and Barbara followed close behind.

Beetlejuice was facing away from them. His legs were criss-crossed together, but he wasn’t sitting on the couch. In fact, he was floating just a few inches above it. He was twisting the small plastic toy in his hands back and forth, popping the slots together and apart over and over. His fidgeting only stopped when Barbara placed a hand on his shoulder, and the demon floated back down to press into the couch cushions, tucking the toy back into his jacket.

Charles sat in his chair and Delia went to sit on the arm. The Maitlands sat on the couch next to Beetlejuice. And Lydia, guessing that this was a meeting about the demon himself, took a seat in front of him on the ottoman, which thankfully had a cushioned top.

There was an awkward silence hanging in the air as everyone settled in. As if no one really knew what to say. Or they did know what to say, they just didn’t know how to start.

“Um,” came Adam’s voice, drawing all eyes to him. He cleared his throat, lifting up a hand to gesture at Beetlejuice. “Uh, Lydia. Beetlejuice was ... well, he was expressing some things we would like to talk about as a family.”

Lydia blinked, glancing over to her father and Delia for a moment. They both have nods, Delia’s more encouraging, so she turned back. “Okay. What are we talking about?”

“Well,” Barbara continued. “Beetlejuice was ... telling us about when he died. He told us that it affected him a great deal. And he wanted to talk to you about it, right Beetlejuice?” She smiled softly, leaning into the demon’s line of sigh to urge him forward.

Lydia blinked, tilting her head. “But we already talked about it?”

The Maitlands looked at her surprised, then back to Beetlejuice.

“You did?” They said in sync.

“Yeah.” Lydia answered first. “We talked about it in the kitchen. He told me how he drowned and we talked about it. I know it was a ... tough thing to talk about. And I’m really happy he told me about it, but ...” She trailed off, looking at the ghost couple’s confused faces.

Then to Beetlejuice’s, which was paler than it normally was. The demon made a sound very similar to a deflating balloon, and he leaned over until his forehead touched his toes. There was a moment of pause, and then Lydia winced at her realization. From his reaction and the Maitland’s faces, that was most certainly not the death he was talking about. And she just told them all about it.

“Oh. Oh, Beetlejuice, I - I’m _so_ sorry. I didn’t mean to.” Lydia waved her hands out in front of her, hoping to show her friend that she really didn’t mean to tell them. “I thought you had told them.”

“Uh, well, despite that!” Adam pipped up, maybe a bit to highly pitched as he lifted a finger in the air. “That’s uh! Not the death he was talking to us about!” The ghost coughed into his fist, trying to get his voice back down a few octaves. “Beetlejuice — well, we all want to talk about ... what happened.” To clarify, he said. “We want to talk about what happened when Beetlejuice died in the house.”

Lydia’s stomach seized up. 

Of course. This conversation was inevitable. It had been inevitable since the moment Beetlejuice had screamed the words at her face in the attic. What happened had affected him. It had affected it. If she was being honest, she expected the incident had affected everyone in the household. She looked down at the edges of her dress, grabbing a piece of loose thread and pulling it until it snapped. 

The death of the demon Beetlejuice.

No.

The death of the **_human_** Beetlejuice. 

The sound of his bones snapping and his scream still echoed through her mind sometimes. They had been there before the demon showed up on the roof, and they hadn’t gone away since.

Her gaze only lifted when Beetlejuice sat up, guided by Barbara’s soft hands.

“Okay.” Lydia said with a curt nod. “So, let’s talk about it.” 

“Well. We just want to start off with this;” Barbara began. “Killing Beetlejuice was wrong. He was a human being and deserved a chance.”

“A chance to kill my dad?!” Lydia snapped, and oh boy did she regret it as soon as she said it. 

“I wasn’t going to kill him.” Beetlejuice spoke up for the first time since she saw him that afternoon. His voice sounded thick, like it was getting caught in his throat while he tried to force it out of his body. “My brain was going faster than my body, by the time I decided to hurt him, I was already thinking of not doing it.”

Lydia crossed her arms over her chest. Despite the sad, purple haired demon before her now, Beetlejuice had been terrifying. 

“You _have_ to understand.” She began, gesturing with her hands. “Killing you and sending you to the Netherworld was the **_only_** way to stop you.”

Beetlejuice laughed.

Not laughed, really, more like sputtered or snickered.

“Only? Really? Is that what you tell yourself to help you sleep at night?” He grinned mockingly.

“ _Beetlejuice-_ ” Delia started.

“No! No, I’m real curious.” Though Beetlejuice’s tone was angry, his hair only grew a deeper shade of blue. “Because last time I checked, I’m a pretty below average guy. Sure, I can break out and do a tap dance for a full five minutes, and I’ve got great stamina, if you know what I mean, but it’s not like me as a human is that big of a threat.”

Lydia blinked before speaking, her voice wavering. “What ... what do you mean?”

“I mean, Lyds.” The demon continued. “You and your dad didn’t have to pull an elaborate scheme to kill me. You had two smoking hot ghosts who could possess a whole dinner party at once.” He pointed to the Maitlands, who were visibly shrinking back. “You could’ve, I don’t know, had them possess the **_ONE_** guy who was a threat and have them toss me out the house. Or better yet, just toss me out of the house! There were five of you! Even if you couldn’t possess me, Chuck you’re a big guy!” He turned towards Charles who blinked with surprise at the address. “You could’ve easily overpowered me!”

“Uh,” her father looked over to Delia. “Y - yes, well, I supposed I ... could’ve done that.”

“You could’ve, but you didn’t. Because Lydia,” Beetlejuice turned, pointing a grungy index finger at her. “Just had to kill me.”

“Yes. I had to.” Lydia sat up straight, but her voice didn’t sound as confident as before. “You - you were still dangerous. You were trying to kill everyone before we even got there!”

Delia spoke up softly. “Y - yes. We, uh, we shouldn’t forget about that wheel.”

Beetlejuice rolled his eyes with a grimace, crossing his arms. “That wheel was punishment because Lydia wouldn’t man up and let me out of the house via a green card!” He paused. “Oh! And she literally jumped into Hell to get away from me.”

“Yeah! What did you expect me to do?! You asked me to marry you!” Lydia stood up, hands balling at her sides.

Beetlejuice followed suit, standing up to his full height. His hair was shifting colors again, but this time it was growing into a very deep red. 

“Because you were going to treat me like a demon no matter what I did for you!”

“Because you were acting like a demon and tricked me into almost killing Barbara!”

“Because you wanted to bring your mom back!”

“Why was wanting that so bad!?”

“Because YOU SAID WE WEREN’T FRIENDS ANYMORE!”

Beetlejuice slammed his eyes shut. A book came flying off the nearby shelf and smashed into the wall, the binding splitting open for the papers to scatter on the floor. 

Lydia blinked.

_“What?”_

“I finally had a friend for the first time in _centuries_.” Beetlejuice growled. “We were - we were having fun and playing pranks and scaring people. And as soon as you got the chance you were - you were going to ditch me to hang out with your stupid dead mom!” 

Lydia looked up at Beetlejuice. Though his angry stance stayed the same, she watched as his red hair skipped purple and went straight to a deep blue. 

“I never ... said we weren’t friends anymore.” She told him.

“Don’t try to trick me.” Beetlejuice snuffed, trying to keep his face scrunched up with anger. “Don’t do that to me, Lydia. You said it. You said it right to my face.”

“When did this happen?” Barbara asked softly. 

“Why don’t I show you?” The demon snapped his fingers and suddenly, echoing voices came from the stairway. The family’s heads turned to see very ghostly outlines of Beetlejuice and Lydia.

 _“I’ll just ask Adam and Barbara to open it.”_ Said Lydia’s voice.

 _“Wait what?”_ replied Beetluice’s, his voice sounding a mixture of both shock and hurt. _“Where ya goin’? You’re leaving me.”_ The last sentence wasn’t a question, it was a statement. And they watched as Lydia’s silhouette rushed up the first part of the stairs.

 _“I need the book open.”_ Said Lydia, matter-of-factly.

Beetlejuice’s shadow followed her, but stopped at the edge of the stairs. _“But I thought … we were pals?”_ His voice shook softly.

 _“What are you talking about? I gotta find my mom.”_ And Lydia’s shadow rushed back up the stairs.

There was a long pause before Beetlejuice went. _“Then what am I supposed to do?!”_ It sounded desperate, hurt, and all around scared. As if he needed someone to tell him what to do or he would have no idea.

As quickly as the voices were there, with another snap of Beetlejuice’s fingers, they were suddenly gone.

“See?” Beetlejuice sighed, his shoulders slumping. “Right to my face.”

“Beetlejuice,” Lydia reached out her hand. “That’s not what I meant-“

The demon snatched his arm away before she could even get close enough to touch him. “How could that have possibly not have been what you meant?! You said it right to my face!”

“If I may! If I may pop in here! I **_am_** a life coach!” And suddenly Delia was between them. Not like, between them standing in the middle, but next to them, keeping them from biting of each other’s heads. At least for the moment. “What’s going on here is a classic case of miscommunication.”

“Yeah, it sure is.” Beetlejuice huffed a bit smugly. Then he turned to Delia with one of his brows lifted. “What does that mean?”

“It means, well, it means that Lydia said something that she meant a certain way, and you heard it in a different way.” Delia explained, gesturing largely with her hands.

“My hearing’s just fine.” said the demon. “Lydia said she didn’t want to be pals anymore.”

“... **_did_** she say that, though?” The woman said with a helpful smile.

Lydia looked between her and Beetlejuice.

“What?” asked the demon with a grimace.

“Did Lydia say she didn’t want to be friends anymore? Did she say those words to you?” 

“W - well, yeah!” Beetlejuice went to fix his coat, pulling on his tie rather roughly. “She went, what are you talking about? Like she was saying ' _of course_ I don’t want to be your friend anymore!'”

“Beetlejuice.” Delia smiles helpfully. “What I think Lydia was trying to say, was that she was confused. She was confused because well, I think she was trying to say 'what are you talking about? Why would you even suggest we’re not friends anymore?'” Delia explained. “Now, of course, she could’ve been clearer with her words. It would’ve saved all of us a lot of trouble.”

Beetlejuice’s eyebrows creased together, and his hair shifted back to the purple it had been for the last few months. He reached up to run a hand through it, looking like he was trying to solve a very difficult math problem in his head. Then he turned to Lydia.

“Did you ... really mean it like that?” Before she could reply he continued. “And - and you gotta tell me the truth! It’s one of the rules!” And his finger pointed towards the kitchen where the list lay out in view. 

Lydia nodded. “Of course I meant it like that. I didn’t — I didn’t know why you thought me bringing my mom back would mean we wouldn’t be friends anymore.” She explained. “If anything, if there even was a way, it would’ve been like gaining a new friend. I thought you and my mom would get along. She would’ve loved haunting the house with us.”

“ _Oh_.” Beetlejuice sank back onto the couch as Delia rejoined Charles. He ran his hand through his hair again and for a while, silence took the room again.

Lydia sat back down as well, giving a sigh of relief. Maybe this was a good thing. Now she and Beetlejuice didn’t have that misunderstanding between them anymore.

But then Beetlejuice mumbled.

“You still didn’t have to kill me.”

And Lydia’s eyes squeezed shut as she gripped the edges of her dress. “I don’t -“

“Care. I know you don’t.” Beetlejuice huffed, finishing her sentence that wasn’t at all what she was trying to say. “But I wanted out, Lydia. I wanted freedom. I want to get out of the house and meet people. Talk to people. Love people! And you -!” Lydia looked up, and Beetlejuice was clutching his chest. She knew that spot all too well. “You took all of that from me! I -“

He paused, blinked, and suddenly there were tears in his eyes. 

“I wasn’t ready to die again, Lydia.”

And just as quickly, Lydia began crying too. It was slow, but the tears started falling down her cheeks like rain drops. Something about that sentence got to her. She didn’t know what it was, but her chest seized up.

“I - I didn’t - it didn’t affect me for a while.” She began. “I just thought, you know, it was you, you were joking and laughing. Even when I killed you. But deep down I knew it was different. I knew you were scared and you were hurting, probably really badly, and I knew it was because of me.” Lydia sniffled, reaching up to rub her face with her sleeve. “I couldn’t sleep that night. Or the night after. And when I did sleep, I would have terrible dreams about killing you. You would just — keep screaming.”

There was a shift of movement, and Lydia looked up to see Beetlejuice on one knee before her. But it wasn’t a position like his mocking proposal. Instead, his face was wrapped in a mixture of concern and awe, and he carefully placed his hand on hers. 

To anyone else, the position might’ve looked like an older sibling comforting the younger. 

“I told myself I had no choice.” Lydia admitted. “I really did.” She shook her head from side to side. “But I knew there had to be another way. Maybe I was just mad. I don’t know. I really, really don’t know.”

“ _Lyds_.” Beetlejuice sighed softly, but trailed off as if he couldn’t find the words.

“You were _alive_.” She sucked in a breath before shuttering out a sob. “You were alive and breathing and your heart was pumping. And you died. You died right in front of me. And you died because of me. Because I killed you.” 

She took a deep breath, bringing down her hand from her face to look at the demon, and then

“Beetlejuice, I am _**so**_ sorry.” 

Beetlejuice’s eyes widened, and the tears spilled from them as if they were a faucet. The demon said something that Lydia couldn’t make out, and then one of his hands was on the back of her head and he pulled her into his shoulder.

Oh.

He had said “I’m going to hug you now.”

He must’ve known she was going to say yes, because Lydia quickly wrapped her arms around his back and clutched tightly to the material of his suit. This was different from their hug in the kitchen, and it was different from their first hug. There was no flinching, no joking about bad smells, it was just Lydia and Beetlejuice, crying their eyes out as they held onto each other.

“I’m sorry too.” Came Beetlejuice’s muffled voice. “I’m sorry for tricking you, I’m sorry for terrorizing your family, I’m sorry for lying and hurting you and -“

“It’s okay.” Lydia whispered, giving a little laugh. “It’s okay, I forgive you.” The words made Beetlejuice squeeze her a little tighter, to which she gently rubbed her hand against his back.

“What a pair are we, huh?” Beetlejuice laughed, shoulders still shaking slightly. He pulled back a bit and wiping his face with the cuffs of his sleeves.

“Your face is all red.” Lydia giggled, poking his face with her finger.

“Ah, you should see the other guy.” Beetlejuice grabbed her hand, sticking out his tongue at Lydia with a grin.

It was then that Lydia blinked, and a great big smile appeared on her face. But she wasn’t looking at Beetlejuice’s eyes. Instead, she was looking a little bit further up.

“Beetlejuice!” She smiled brightly.

“What?” The demon giggled, reaching up to place Lydia’s hand on his ruffled mounted of hair. “What God awful color is it now?”

Lydia’s mouth pressed together as she tried to keep herself from letting out a choking sob.

“It’s _green_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tadaaaaaa!! It finally happened! Lydia and Beetlejuice finally got to talk about their feelings! Yaaay! This chapter was so fun to write, even if I did spend almost the whole night writing it. Ah, 2 am writings, you're the only way I'm creative with dialogue. I hope you guys enjoyed all the crying in this chapter. Finally! The sweet release of guilt.
> 
> That's one problem solved, but Beetlejuice is still stuck in the house? Can that even be solved? Guess we'll have to find out! Thank you all so much for sticking with me with this fic, I'm having so much fun reading all your comments and feedback!


	14. Mother and Son

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beetlejuice adapts to every day life. He makes a special trip to ask a favor.

Beetlejuice’s hair remained green for the majority of the next few weeks. Safe to say, the demon was exceptionally happy with his new found situation and people within it.

He and Lydia got along better than a house on fire, for better or for worse. During the day, they could either be found watching horror movies in her room, giving each other either ridiculous or ridiculously good makeovers, or scaring whatever poor salesman decided to knock on their door.

It was nice to be able to get along with Lydia again, Beetlejuice couldn’t remember a time where he actually had a best friend. Having one again, no icky and mean emotional strings attached, was nice.

He liked being friends with Charles and Delia too, if you could call it being friends. He’d pop over and hang on the back of Charles’ chair as he worked, offering probably not the best advice as the man shooed him away with his hand and an annoyed smile. Delia, he liked better, not just because she was cooler than her fiancé either, though that did help. She reminded him a lot of how a mother is supposed to act. She’d invite him to join her in yoga, or have him sit out on the porch to talk to her while she was gardening. She would always take the time to ask him if he was okay, and would offer him a crystal and some (maybe not the best, but it’s the thought that counts) advice.

The Maitlands were his favorite part of the situation. They were just his favorite in general. The two had invited him into their little circle, if a circle could be made from two people. He’d help Barbara paint little houses and bushes, and then he’d help Adam glue them down to their places. It wasn’t just things with the model either. Turns out, Adam and Barbara had their own movie night, just for them in the attic on one of the old couches. They’d sit and watch a VHS movie on whatever 12-inch box tv they had fixed up from a thrift shop when they were alive. One day, they invited Beetlejuice to stay and watch with them and he found himself sitting between the two Maitlands, absolutely not paying attention to the movie and instead on the close proximity.

Lydia had not let him live it down, and was constantly teasing him for his (very apparent) crush on the Maitlands.

“You gotta do something for them!” She insisted, pulling her pillow close to her chest with excitement.

“Like what?” Beetlejuice had been pacing around her room for the last hour, running his hands through his very pink hair as he tried to figure out what to do.

“Like get them something! Everybody likes gifts.” She stated. “Especially gifts from their cruuuuussh!”

“If you hadn’t notice, can’t leave the house, can’t get them anything.” The demon pointed out.

“Well, I could go to the store and pick it up for you.”

“Yeah, but I don’t have any money.”

“Why don’t you make them something?” Lydia suggested. “They love crafts. If you made something for them, I’m sure they’d love it!”

Beetlejuice paused, scratching his nails over the scruff on his chin. They did like that model of theirs. What could he get them that showed them he liked them? What could he make? He didn’t know a lot about crafts, even though Barbara had been showing him the ropes.

He suddenly blinked as an idea came to his head and he quickly spun towards Lydia with a smile. “Can I borrow your camera?!”

Lydia gave him a confused look, but hopped off her bed and over to her dresser. After opening her drawer, she picked up one of her digital cameras and held it out. “You’re not gonna break it are you?”

“No! Scouts honor!” Beetlejuice smiled, taking it from her hands and putting the band over his neck, and immediately he went over the Lydia’s window and pulled it open.

“WHOA! What are you doing?!” Lydia gasped and ran after him as he climbed onto the roof.

“The Maitlands can only see a bit of the town from their window.” Beetlejuice said, pulling himself up. “Eventually, they’re gonna start making the model from memory. And you know how perfectionist they are. It’s gotta be a perfect model.”

“So, what are you gonna do?”

“Test how far this ‘can’t leave the house’ limit goes!” Beetlejuice grinned from ear to ear and then shot off the roof like a rocket into the sky. He heard Lydia call his name and suddenly he was in the air above the house, looking down at the town below. It all looked so … tiny. Perfect for a reference photo of the town.

It took him a few minutes to figure out how to take the picture (he really should’ve asked Lydia before he went flying off), but he managed to get a few good pictures of the town from above. He landed with his heels clicking against the tiles and he swung his way back into Lydia’s room, excitedly asking her to help him develop the photos.

Then there was the waiting! Photos took a long time to develop, at least that’s what it felt like, at least in the slow, agonizing way Lydia was doing it. Beetlejuice groaned every five minutes, pushing his face into one of her pillows as he kept asking her when she’d be done.

He couldn’t take the photos from her quicker when they were finally finished, and he quickly tore up the stairs towards the attick to show the Maitlands.

The receival was AMAZING Barbara had jumped up and down like a kid on Christmas as she took a few of the photographs in her hands, and Adam came up behind them to view the rest as Beetlejuice showed him.

“These are amazing! You have no idea how much this’ll help us!” Barbara squealed. “Beetlejuice, I could kiss you!”

He didn’t even have to look in a mirror to know his hair was pink. “Uh, well, I mean, you can if you want t-“ Before he could even finish, Barbara had grabbed the side of his face and leaned in to give him a great big smooch on his cheek. Then, Adam did the same with his opposite temple.

“These are great! C’mon, let’s start planning. OH! I’ll get the styrofoam and sharpies!” The ghost smiled, taking Beetlejuice’s hand and leading him towards one of the many tool shelves.

Though that probably would’ve sounded like the most boring thing in the world give or take three months ago, right now, Beetlejuice had the biggest smile on his face. He’d do a million boring tasks if it meant more kisses from the Maitlands.

There was … one thing that wasn’t perfect.

His new curse really, really sucked. Watching Lydia bike to school by herself sucked. Not being able to go out and do what he wanted sucked. At least when he was invisible, he could go relatively wherever he wanted. Now, he was stuck at home, waiting by the window for Lydia to come home. He really didn’t like weekdays. Weekdays, everyone was out of the house, Lydia, Charles, and Delia. He missed them while they were gone. And though he knew the Maitlands liked him, maybe liked him, liked him, he still didn’t want to intrude when they needed time to themselves.

The demon sighed, pressing one fist to his cheek as he looked out the window. On instinct, he took the card with his name and flipped it absentmindedly in his fingers, just to pass the time. But Beetlejuice suddenly stopped and drew the card close to his face.

The card. It had been the only rule his mom had given him back when she first cursed him. But the rules were different now, so where was his new card?

Beetlejuice stood up, walking towards the stairs, but he quickly doubled back and into the living room where Adam and Barbara sat watching television.

“Hey Babs? I wanna draw Lydia something.” He called in. “Do we have anything to draw with in the attic?”

The ghost turned slightly with a smile. “Yes, in the little box on Adam’s work desk there’s all kinds of drawing tools.”

“Thank you!” And suddenly, Beetlejuice was rushing up the stairs. Once he was in the attic, he quickly shut the door behind him, and pondered for a moment if he should lock it. Deciding against it, he found the box Barbara instructed and drug through it to find something that would make a good door.

And ah – ha! Good ol’ chalk never failed. Beetlejuice pulled the piece out of the box and walked over to the nearest clear wall. Before he made any movement, the demon took a deep breath to steady himself.

This was a good plan.

He drew a Beetlejuice sized door with the chalk and knocked three times. A door to the Netherworld opened, and he fixed his suit before stepping inside.

The Netherworld, safe to say, felt a little bit more … happy? than the last time he walked in. That being said, the waiting room felt a lot less dull than before (big grand musical numbers aside). Recently deceased figures spoke to each other, some played card games, some comforted the rather younger recents, though none of them really payed him any attention as he passed. The demon walked up to the counter, surprised at how low the number on the waiting screen was, and gently tapped the bell.

At least the receptionists face was a familiar green one.

“Beetlejuice?” Miss Argentina looked at him with wide eyes, but she soon smiled and placed down the clipboard. “What are you doing here?”

“Heeeeey, Missi.” Beetlejuice snapped his fingers into a finger gun, giving the woman a cheeky smile and a wink. “I’m actually here for a small favor, but what happened to this place. Didn’t think Ma was too keen on renovating.”

“Well, your mother took a very long time to regenerate.” Miss Argentina stood, walking over to the door that separated the waiting room and her office and opened it for Beetlejuice to step inside. “I took it upon myself to do some spring cleaning.”

“Oh! Does that mean you’re in charge?” He asked, pointing a finger at her. When the beauty queen smiled, Beetlejuice paused for a moment. “Then where my mom?”

“Brewing with hatred in her office.” Said Miss Argentina. “The Netherworld had quite the political shift since you’ve last been here. Your mother handles the books now, keeping track of most of those who come in.”

“No kidding.” Beetlejuice took one last look at the waiting room. It must’ve been for the best.

“So, what’s this favor I can do for you?” The beauty queen turned with a smile, clasping her hands together.

“Ah, well, it’s super simple actually.” Beetlejuice chuckled. “All you gotta do is point me in the direction of said Ma’s office.”

Miss Argentina looked at him surprised, then tilted her head with confusion. “You … want to see your mother?”

“I do indeed.”

“Why?”

“Just need to. Gotta ask her a question.”

“Oh, well, alright.” She opened the door to reveal a spiraling hall. “Go down the hallway, her door is the thirteenth on the right.”

“Thirteen, of course.” Beetlejuice chuckled. “Thanks, Missi, I’ll say bye to ya on my way out.” He gave her a small wave before passing her. He navigated his way down the checker floored hallway. He hadn’t seen his mother since, well, since he got her eaten by a sandworm. She probably wouldn’t be super thrilled to see him. But the sooner he got out of her hair for good, the better.

Hopefully. Probably. There was still a bit of him that loved his mom. He just thinks that’s how he was built.

Coming to door number thirteen, Beetlejuice paused for a moment to take another deep breath. Okay. This was okay. Just walk in, ask for a new card, no, tell her you want a new card, then get out. He placed his hand over the doorknob and turned it, opening the door.

His mother’s office was what you would expect it to be. Dull, but have a very sinister air about it. She didn’t have any furniture other that her desk and chair, which faced the door as it opened. A mirror hung on the wall over a fire place, though his mother wasn’t the vain type, Beetlejuice guessed that even she looked at her reflection every now and then.

Sitting at the desk was Juno. She was leaned over, pen in one hand as she scribbled down in a big, important looking book. Next to her was an ash tray filled with cigarettes and a class filled with whiskey and ice. She had not looked up when the door opened.

Puffing out his chest and striding forward, Beetlejuice tried to look as brave as possible as he marched up to his mother’s desk. Once there, he dug the card out from his pocket and slammed it onto the decaying wood.

“I want a new card.” He stated clearly and firmly.

Juno did not look up. Instead, her pen continued writing along the pages of whatever book she was writing in. Beetlejuice looked around nervously. Then he cleared his throat.

“Hey! Didn’t – didn’t you hear me?!” The demon growled, or well, tried to. It sounded more like a quiver in his voice. “I said I want a new card!”

His mother didn’t move anything but her eyes, which flicked up to meet his. Beetlejuice sucked in a breath as he pulled his hands off of her desk, as if it had burned him.

“Oh, Lawrence.” Juno smiled as she spoke softly. She set down her pen and rested her chin upon her folded hands. “I didn’t see you there.”

Beetlejuice growled, honestly this time, at her words. That was a cruel joke, even for her.

“I must admit, it’s odd to see you here, and without any souls to guide.” Juno continued. “I thought you would’ve killed those pesky humans that got away by now, but I can’t expect you to do anything right, now can I?"

The demon stood up straight again, trying his best to regain what look of bravery he might have had. He stepped back up to her desk, planting his hand over the card once more.

“Yeah, well, you see me now.” He huffed. “But you heard me. I want a new card.”

“What’s wrong with this one, Lawrence?” Juno said with a sly tone.

“You know what’s wrong. It doesn’t work.”

“No. No. It works perfectly.” His mother responded, gently patting his hand with hers, which he carefully snatched away. She took the piece of paper with her sharp fingers and looked it over. “It shows what needs to be said to summon you.”

“Yeah, but I’m supposed to be free. I can’t leave the Maitlands house.” Beetlejuice told her, pulling his hand back still. “Lydia tried saying my name outside of the house, but it didn’t work.” He then pointed a finger at his mother. “You t – you told me it would work anywhere, no restrictions. Just as long as I got someone to say –“ And quite suddenly he was teetering forward, the pang in his chest squeezed at him, and he once again had to plant his hand on the desk to keep himself from falling.

Juno snickered. “Say what, dearie?”

“You know damn well what.” Beetlejuice narrowed his eyes, looking up at his mother with a scowl. “ Say my name three times.” 

“Yes, well, things change, Lawrence.” Juno shrugged. “People change too. You of all people should know that by now.”

“But rules aren’t supposed to change.” He stood up a bit. “You can’t just change my curse without telling me. It’s not fair!”

“Since when is life or death fair?” She snapped at him, making him lean back. “You were the one who wanted to bend the rules in the first place to become alive. And look where that got you.”

Beetlejuice’s hand instinctively clutched over his death spot. Juno’s voice cackled throughout her office.

“Hahaha! Did I hit a nerve, Lawrence?” She rolled her eyes. “You’ve died before. You think you’d be over it.”

“It still hurt.”

“You’re pathetic, Lawrence.”

“That is **not** my name.” He mumbled.

“Oh? And what is your name?” He could hear her smiling without needing to look.

Beetlejuice sucked in a breath, he turned to his mother and placed both hands firmly on her desk table. He wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction. He was going to wipe that cruel smile clean off her face.

“My name is –” His face twisted up as he gritted his teeth together. “My name is –“ His hands curled into fists so tight that his nails dug into his palms. He took a deep breath and tried to speak again, but he almost doubled over. His chest felt like it was being squeezed together, and his eyes shut painfully. Eventually, Beetlejuice stopped trying and he pushed himself off the desk with a gasp as if coming up for air after being submerged.

“I thought so.” Juno said, almost as if she were disappointed. “What were you even here for again?”

“A new card!” Beetlejuice shouted angrily, spinning back towards his mother. “When you first cursed me, you gave me a card and rules. To be seen, someone had to say my name three times. Now, I’m stuck in a house with no new rules and no new card! I want to be able to walk into town with Lydia, I want to be able to step into my backyard. I’m going stir crazy in my own house, Ma! Can’t you give me anything? Can’t you even give me my own name?!”

Juno looked at him for a very long time. Her eyes drifted from the top of his head to the hands he had on her desk. She pulled herself back, almost moving like a snake would before she spoke very calmly. “ _Your_ backyard? _Your_ house?” She asked him, tilting her head slightly, even more snake-like than before.

Beetlejuice did not waver in his eye contact with her, no matter how much it scared him.

“Mmmmhhh. You’ve grown too soft.” She sighed. “Actually, you’ve always been soft. Always desperate for someone to love you.”

“They do love me.” Beetlejuice stated firmly. “More than you ever did. Or will.”

“You dare talk to your mother like that?” And suddenly she was standing, placing both her hands on her hips.

The demon stumbled back a few paces. “L – look, Ma. I just – You don’t have to give me anything special. I j - just want a new card.”

“You _j – j – j – just want?_ ” Juno mocked, rolling her eyes almost all the way into the back of her head. She reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose. “I don’t know why I bother with you, Lawrence. I really don’t. You can’t seem to accomplish simple tasks. I curse you to get you out of my hair in the first place, and you manage to set two breathers loose in the Netherworld, then you get me eaten by a sandworm, to which I have to take a **_very long_** time to regenerate.” She said harshly, and Beetlejuice felt himself pushing his head into his shoulders. “Then, I curse you again to maybe let you make up for the fact that you lost us two souls, but you still manage to screw that up! Can you do anything right, Lawrence?!” She screeched. 

“I – uh –“ Beetlejuice reached up to fiddle with his suit. Collar, lapel, sleeves, cuffs, and lastly his tie. “I – I guess not.” He swallowed nervously. “I – I’m sorry, Ma.”

“You should be. I am very, very disanointed in you.” Juno walked around her desk to stand in front of Beetlejuice. She looked him over before reaching up to fix his collar. At first, Beetlejuice flinched, but he relaxed as he realized she was only flattening out his lapels, then his tie. “What am I going to do with you, Lawrence?” She asked softly.

“Uh, I don’t know, Ma.” He said with a nervous laugh. “Maybe … maybe let me have a new card? It can be just as simple as last time. You don’t even need to tell me what to do, just a new card and I’ll – **_HGK!_** ” Beetlejuice slammed his eyes shut as Juno grabbed onto his tie and yanked it down.

Now, demons didn’t need to breath, but maybe living with the Maitlands and the Deetzes for too long convince him that he needed to. As Juno pulled, his hands reached up and tried to claw the piece of fabric away from his neck. His eyes stung and he gasped hoarsely as he was pulled close to his mother’s face.

“I don’t owe you anything, Lawrence. You don’t deserve anything. Do you understand that?” When he didn’t respond right away, she pulled his tie even tighter.

Beetlejuice hacked and nodded his head as fast as he could. “Y – yes, Ma!”

“You don’t deserve to be free. Understand?”

“Yes, Ma!”

“Even if I give you anything, it’s out of the kindness of my own heart, not because you deserve it. Got it?!” She yanked at his tie even harder.

  
“AH! Yes! Yes, Ma! I got it! I definitely got it!”

“Good. Now you listen closely. I –“

“BEETLEJUICE!”

There suddenly came a voice that sounded like it echoed throughout the whole Netherworld. He knew that voice.

“L – Lydia?” He choked out.

“BEETLEJUICE! WHERE ARE YOU? COME BACK!” Her voiced screamed again.

“Oh, if it isn’t your little friend.” Juno let go of his tie, almost sending him falling forward. She picked him up, dusting off his coat with a cruel smile. “You better head back home.”

The demon looked at the other, his eyes widening with confusion.

“You know, you should think about keeping your hair like that.” Juno said slyly, sitting back down at her desk. “You look good. You look like me.”

Beetlejuice fixed his tie, backing away from his mother with fear in his eyes. He stumbled past the mirror hanging up on the office wall, catching a glimpse of what he looked like.

He looked terrified.

And his mother was right. His hair resembled hers. Stark white.

Beetlejuice looked back at her, mumbling something unintelligible. With his hands still wrapped around his tie, Beetlejuice fumbled and pushed the door open. He scrambled out of his mother’s office and dashed through the waiting room. Past Miss Argentina without a word, pushed through the recently deceased as he fumbled his way out. He didn’t know why he was rushing, but he just had to get out of there. The whole Netherworld felt like it was choking him. Like it was the crushing weight of the ocean. He ran towards Lydia’s voice before he spotted it.

There was the door. Lydia stood there with her arm outstretched towards him.

“Beetlejuice! Come on! Hurry!” She screamed, and maybe there was something chasing him. Beetlejuice ran as fast as he could before grabbing Lydia’s hand. Instead of her very heroically pulling him into the safety of the house, his momentum ended up having him ram into her. And both he and Lydia crashed onto the floor boards of the house.

“Close it quick!” came a voice as he and Lydia rolled over. Once they stopped, Beetlejuice slammed both hands over his eyes. The sound of a door closing followed. He breathed in quickly and with shaking breaths, unable to get his mother’s voice out of his head.

“Beetlejuice? Hey! Hey, Beetlejuice, it’s okay! You’re safe.” Lydia was over him, both hands on top of his. “What – what were you doing? What happened.”

“I wanted – I just wanted …” He was being sat up, and it must have been the Maitlands with their hands on both his shoulders. Beetlejuice sucked in a shaking breath before shuttering it back out. “I wanted to be able to – to go outside. I wanted a new rule. I wanted a new card. But – but she wouldn’t let me, she –”

“She?” asked Barbara’s voice. “Beetlejuice, did you go see your mother?”

He nodded.

“Did – did she hurt you?” asked Adam.

And it took a moment before Beetlejuice shook his head, though he didn’t know why.

“She did, didn’t she?” Lydia gasped before rushing in to wrap her arms around Beetlejuice’s waist. “Oh, Beetlejuice, I’m so sorry. You should’ve told us. I would’ve gone with you.”

“NO!” Beetlejuice gasped, pulling Lydia in closer as if to protect her. “N-no. She would’ve hurt you too. She wants you and your dad dead. No one is supposed to come back from the Netherworld. And - and I don't care about not leaving the house anymore, I don't - I don't." It's not like he didn't want to leave anymore, but the situation at hand lead him to believe that it's definitely not the most important thing in the world. He didn't need to be free. He just needed the Maitlands. He just needed the Deetzes and his name and -

The demon blinked for a moment, then he reached into his pockets.

No.

 _“No, no, no.”_ He pulled Lydia off of him before getting on his hands and knees.

“What is it?” said Barbara. “What’s wrong?”

“My – my card! My _name!_ ” Beetlejuice cried, crawling as he tried to see clearly through tearing eyes. “Where is it?! Where’d it go!?”

“Your card? You mean the one you showed us?” Adam stood up, surveying the area as well.

“Yes! Yes! It’s the only thing my mom ever gave me! It’s the only thing that has my name on it!” The demon said desperately, pawing the floor with his hands until he reached the wall. “Please! Please, I need it! I need my name! You can’t take that away too!”

“Beetlejuice,” Lydia was kneeling at his side in an instant, placing both her hands on his back. “It’s okay.”

“No! You don’t understand, Lydia. That’s my card. I _need_ my card. I _need_ it.” He sobbed, pressing his forehead against the floorboards.

“No, I mean, it’s okay … because it’s right there.” Her voice drew his head back up, and he followed her pointing finger to the wall. In between two of the bricks was a small slip of paper.

Beetlejuice grabbed it and held it up to his eyes. In his mother’s cruel handwriting was not his name, but different words. Lydia and the Maitlands crowed around him to see what it read. The demon’s throat felt tight as he looked down at the words.

_Return the souls you owe to me. I’ll return your name to you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and welcome to 'I have absolutely no idea how to start writing the next chapter so I hope this really long chapter holds you over until I can figure out what to do!' 
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed the domestic moments before I immediately went back to angst. Hurray! It's Juno! Or, uh, booooo, it's Juno! I had a lot of fun writing the scene between her & Beetlejuice. Their relationship is so interesting (and terribly sad) and I really wanted to see how I could explore it.
> 
> What's gonna happen next? Who knows, certainly not me !!!! jk, i have ideas. Imma keep writing for y'all. You guys are so sweet thank you for sticking around this long. I have a feeling we're coming down the home stretch for this fic!


	15. Beetlejuice's 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The family makes a plan

“What does that mean?” Lydia asked. Beetlejuice rose from where he knelt and ran a hand through his now dark purple hair. “Beetlejuice?” She said once he didn’t respond. “What does that mean?”

“Take a wild guess, Lyds!” Beetlejuice yanked a few strands of his hair as he balled his hand into a fist. “It means you and your dad weren’t supposed to leave the Netherworld, and my mom is still mad about it. If I don’t —- if I don’t bring you guys to her, she’s gonna keep my card!”

“But why is that card so important?” She asked.

“Because it has my name on it! My name, Lydia! Not Lawrence! My real name!” He told her, placing both hands on his chest for emphasis.

“But what if we wrote you a new card?” Adam suggested, walking over and placing a comforting hand on the demon’s shoulder. “We can write your name, so we can make one for you.”

“It’s not the same!” Beetlejuice sighed, placing the heel of his hands over his eyes.

“Why not?” Lydia asked.

Beetlejuice paused, removing his hands to show a very quizzical expression on his face. “It’s — it’s just not, okay? It’s the only thing my Ma ever gave me and now she has it! How would you feel if you lost something from your mom?”

“My mom wasn’t a child murdering psychopath.” Lydia pointed out as kindly as she could.

“It’s still the same ballpark!” 

“Alright, alright!” Barbara stepped in, placing her hands out to the side between Lydia and Beetlejuice. “There’s got to be an easy way out of this.”

“And that is?” Beetlejuice crossed his arms over his chest with a huff.

“Well, obviously, the card means a lot to you, Beetlejuice. Even if it comes from a ... not so nice person.” Barbara said softly. “But, it’s also obvious that we can’t trade Lydia and Charles for it. They’re our family.”

The aspect of this not being an option seemed to make the demon pout even more.

“But we’ve outsmarted Juno before.” Barbara said confidently. “Sort of ... kind of. We just need to take her by surprise again. We need a plan. We’ll get Beetlejuice’s card back, AND find a way for Charles and Lydia to be safe from the Netherworld."

“I guess … Miss Argentina could help us. At least once we get down there.” Beetlejuice piped up. “She likes me.” He shrugged. “I’m sure she could get your names off whatever quota list my mom has.” The demon paused for a moment. “In fact, she didn’t even say anything about it.”

“It might be something your mom made up to get to you.” Adam suggested. “If the Netherworld isn’t actively trying to fulfill this quota, I bet it doesn’t even exist. She’s probably just trying to hurt you.”

“Probably? More like most definitely.” Beetlejuice groaned. He stuffed his hands into his armpits, furrowing his brows with what Lydia could only guess what frustration. “This is stupid. I never should’ve gone in the first place. Why did I think she would ever change?”

“Because _you_ changed, Beetlejuice.” Lydia pointed out, walking over to her friend with a concerned smile. “You thought that if you could, she could too.” She paused before carefully placing a hand on his forearm. “I’m sorry she couldn’t.”

Beetlejuice blinked at Lydia with surprise, then looked away, almost as if he was shameful of doing what she suggested he had done. “W - well, then it was really stupid of me to think that!”

“No, it wasn’t. It was hopeful.” Barbara said softly.

“I should’ve known better anyway!” 

“It’s not your fault she wouldn’t change.” Added Adam. 

“Aargh! Why are you trying to make me feel better!?” Beetlejuice snapped, throwing his arms down and balling his fists at his sides. “Stop it! I messed up, okay?!”

“Because we care about you.” Adam walked around to stand behind Lydia, pitting his hands on her shoulders. The statement seemed to make Beetlejuice close his jaw shut. “We know this really upset you. And before we rush into anything or do anything reckless, we want to make sure you’re okay.” 

The demon’s shoulder’s slacked. His face scrunched up, as if he was trying to keep himself mad or upset, but eventually he gave a tired sigh. His hair faded into a light shade of purple and mixed green and he gave Lydia a sad kind of look before extending out his arms. She didn’t need any more of an invitation before moving forward to wrap her best friend in a tight hug. She felt him press his cheek into her hair and hoped the hug was as comforting as he needed it to be. Hopefully it was, especially when Barbara and Adam joined in from the sides.

“Let’s get out of here, okay?” Barbara suggested, pulling away after pressing a kiss to Beetlejuice’s head. “We’ll wait until Delia and Charles are back before making any big decisions or making a plan. This involves them too, it’s only fair.” 

Lydia nodded and Beetlejuice hummed a small response. He didn’t let go of her, instead, he held Lydia in a makeshift side hug as they all made their way down from the attic and back towards the living room. 

“Sorry.” Beetlejuice mumbled.

“For what?” Lydia whispered back.

“Going to the Netherworld. Talking to my mom and losing my card. Now you and your dad are in danger again and it’s all my fault, again.” 

“Hey, no it’s not.” She reassured, gently patting his stomach with her hand. “None of this is. It’s your mom’s.” She paused. “But going on your own was ... probably not the smartest.”

Beetlejuice hissed out a soft laugh through his teeth, sinking onto the couch with Lydia following. 

“Yeah ... probably not, huh?” He pulled his legs up to sit criss-cross. “I just don’t know what I did to her. I mean, yeah, I was SUPER inconvenient to her whenever I got the chance to be. I’ll admit that. I loved messing with her. But other than causing a couple of office mishaps for her, I don’t know what I ever did to her.”

“Is that why she cursed you? Because you messed with her stuff in the Netherworld?” Lydia asked.

“Oh no. That’s way longer after I was cursed.” Beetlejuice explained. “As soon as my mom assumed power is the Netherworld, she dragged my drowned ass out of the void and — mmmh, I think she tried to get me to work for her? It’s a bit of a blur. But she cursed me. I don’t even think she remembers why.” He shrugged.

“Well, that’s not fair. If she doesn’t remember why either, you shouldn’t be cursed anymore.”

“Aw, sweet thinking, Lyds.” Beetlejuice smiled sadly. “But even if she forgot the first time, she definitely knows why she cursed me a second time. Getting her eaten by a sandworm and then making her lose her position in the Netherworld is probably good enough reason for her.”

“It’s still not fair.”

“My Ma’s never been fair, Lydia.” Beetlejuice sighed, resting his chin on one of his hands. The other went to loosen his tie; Lydia hadn’t noticed the knot had been tightened up to his shirt collar. “Who cares?”

“I care.” She assured.

“Yeah, well, I don’t.” He huffed. It seemed like Beetlejuice was having an inner war with himself. Switching from desperately caring about his business card to acting like he didn’t care about it at all. It didn’t surprise her, even when he wasn’t alive, Beetlejuice’s emotions switched at the drop of a hat.

“I think you do.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Beetlejuice claimed as a sharp whistling sound rang from the kitchen. Barbara must’ve put the kettle on the stove without them noticing she had slipped away. “I’m not - I can’t trade you and Charles for some stupid card.”

“It’s not stupid, Beetlejuice. It’s important to you.” 

“ _You’re_ important to me!” He spun around to Lydia. The statement made Beetlejuice blink with surprise, as if he couldn’t believe he had said it himself. 

There was a shared moment of silence before Lydia continued. “But it’s not stupid to - to care about it.” 

Barbara walked into the room, carrying two steaming mugs in her hands. She leaned down and gave one to Lydia, then one to Beetlejuice. It was hot cocoa, just what they needed after the scare they all had. Lydia said thank you with a soft smile while Beetlejuice mumbled his. The mug was warm in her hands and even before she took a sip of the cocoa, she could already feel its warmth spreading to her chest and calming her down. 

The next hour or so was spent trying to come up with ideas and workshop plans to fix the situation, but they hadn’t made much progress by the time Charles and Delia came through the door. 

Charles blinked in surprise at the sight of the four of them in the living room, all looking rather dejected and slightly confused. It made the man give a tired sigh. _“Oh, boy.”_ He took a deep breath before hanging up his coat and moving to his home office to drop off his briefcase. Delia moved into the living room once he came back and wrapped her hands around his arm. Charles took a seat on his arm chair before gesturing forward with his hand.

“Alright. Go on. What danger has befallen our family today?” 

Lydia exchanged a worried glance with Adam and Barbara wondering how to break the news to her father, but before she could get a word out, Beetlejuice spoke out.

“My mom wants you and Lydia dead.” He said, plain and simple.

“What?!” Charles sputtered.

Lydia spun around to her friend. “Beetlejuice!”

“What?” The demon put his hands up in defense. “He was gonna find out anyway. You guys were taking too long.”

“You didn’t have to say it like that.”

“Then by all means, you explain the situation.” 

It took them a while to do just that. With Delia interrupting with questions and Charles pausing every few minutes to stand and pace for a bit, they managed to tell the story with Beetlejuice explaining only a few details of his interaction with his mother. Only that he went in for a new card and left without his old one.

“So ... how do you suggest we trick your mother?” Charles asked, causing Beetlejuice to blink with surprise.

“Whoa, whoa, you’re asking me to make a plan?” Beetlejuice gaped.

“You know your mom better than anyone.” Barbara said a bit helpfully. 

“Yeah, but, maybe not enough to make a plan. The only reason things worked out last time is that I ran into Sandy. And I don’t think we can drag a whole sandworm into the Netherworld without her accidentally eating a lot of recently deceased.” Beetlejuice placed his cocoa mug on the coffee table before placing his chin on his hands and squeezing his eyes shut. It looked like he was concentrating on thinking. 

“I guess ...” he said after a while. “I guess we could try to trick her.” Beetlejuice sat up, looking around at everyone expectedly. “Well, we could act like I’m giving Charles and Lydia up. Make it look like I’m turning them in to my mom. Then when she goes to hand me my card, we grab it and run out of there like our ass is on fire.” He shrugged before bringing his hand to rub the back of his neck. “I don’t know, it’s just an idea.”

“But I could work.” Lydia spoke up, looking around to her family. “We could put in make up or something so Dad and I look real beat up and tired, even rip our clothes-“

“I’m not ripping my suit.”

“Okay, not rip our clothes. But we can make it look like we put up a good fight.” Lydia continued. “We can bring Adam and Barbara too. Act like it’s icing on the cake for your mom as that way we can have backup.”

“We didn’t feel the pull of the Netherworld too badly when we dragged Beetlejuice out.” Adam reached over to grab Barbara’s hand. “I’m sure if we keep ourselves focused and stick together, we’ll be okay.” To which Barbara have a determined nod.

“What about me?” Delia spoke up, her hand on her chest. “I want to help too. I can help.

“Right, Delia.” Beetlejuice leaned back on the couch, knotting his brows together with thought. What could Delia do? It was dangerous to bring all of them down there. “You will need to talk to Miss Argentina.” He sat up. “We’re gonna need a straight shot back to the door once we trick my mom. You’re gonna be the one with the chalk. Make sure there aren’t any newly deceased in our way when we need to bust out of there.”

Delia nodded with determination. “That I can do.”

Lydia smiled, placing her hands together. “Then let’s make a script. Words we’ll say when we get it to sound convincing enough to trick your mom. Dad and I have to be able to sound betrayed by you when you turn us in.”

“Lydia mentioned looking the part.” Charles added. “Perhaps you could tie us up?”

Beetlejuice’s face suddenly lit up. He opened his mouth to speak but Barbara placed a finger over his mouth.

“Don’t.” She said, to which Beetlejuice stuck out his tongue.

“Not enough time actually trap us. But enough to look convincing, like Lydia said.”

“We could too.” Barbara said gesturing to Adam. “Maybe not as extreme, but enough to keep us together and from wondering away in the Netherworld.”

“Like when people cross a bridge or scale a mountain.” Said Adam.

“Exactly like that.”

Beetlejuice let out a long breath, nervously squeezing his knees with his hands. “My ma’s really scary guys. You don’t have to do this.”

“You’re part of this family now, Beetlejuice.” Charles spoke up, turning surprised eyes to him. He cleared his throat before continuing. “I would do the same for Lydia, Delia, or the Maitlands. We’ll figure this out together. And if our plan fails, we’ll get out of there and think of a new one.”

Beetlejuice said nothing, still looking a bit surprised (and maybe a little awkward) at Charles’ words, and simply gave an understanding nod.

“No one gets left behind in the Netherworld.” Lydia stated, standing up. A determined expression crossed her face. “No matter what happens down there, we leave with everyone. Especially Adam, Barbara, and Beetlejuice.” Who knows what tricks Juno could pull to ensnare her dead relatives? They were all going to make it out alive (or in their case, safely dead) one way or the other. “We go in, trick Juno, get Beetlejuice’s card, and get out.” She turned to Beetlejuice, giving him an encouraging smile. “Got it?"

It took the demon a moment to respond. Lydia watched as he turned to look at all these people willing to help him. People who loved and cared about him and were his family. He gave a soft laugh before looking up at Lydia with a determined, yet mischievous smile.

“Got it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> KICKS DOWN DOOR
> 
> I am SO SO sorry this chapter took me so long to write. Recent events + my own personal biz kept me busy and hit me with a lot of writing burnout. Thank you all so much for your continued comments and kind words, especially your patience. I'm so happy this fic has given everyone a much needed distraction from these trying times. 
> 
> If anyone needs any reminders; you matter, stay strong, stay in the house if you can, and wear a mask!!! And in case you haven't heard it today, you're amazing!
> 
> Queue up your Ocean's 11 heist music, we're going to the Netherworld.


	16. There and Back Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beetlejuice goes to the Netherworld, and Beetlejuice goes home.
> 
> /slight vomit tw/

“NO!” Beetlejuice felt like his heart was ripped in two. It might as well have been. It would’ve hurt less than what he just witnessed. The demon fell to his knees, pawing at the ground before him before his fingers ghosted (absolutely no pun intended) over the small scrap of card stock before him. 

It was going so well.

What happened?

His card. No, no, no, no. His card. His name. His name. His gift from his mother. Literally the only thing his mother had ever given to him.

It was going so well. They had explained the situation to Ms. Argentina. She looked at them as if they were crazy, but she still let them past towards Juno’s office. Beetlejuice had taken a very loosely tied Charles, Lydia, and Maitlands to his mother’s terrifying room. After lying his ass off that he was returning all of them so she could fill whatever stupid quota she needed to fill, Beetlejuice stuck out his hand for his card. 

But maybe his mother was smarter than she liked to appear. She let the card go before it reached Beetlejuice’s hand, and unfortunately, Lydia stuck her hands out of the ropes to catch it before it could hit the ground. 

From there it was an all out brawl. Juno, realizing the situation, tried to grab Lydia. Charles tried to pull her off. Barbara and Adam worked to keep any of Juno’s small, gremlin looking minions away from the door so they could make a break for it, while also trying to keep themselves focused away from the Netherworld draw. Beetlejuice had been utterly and completely useless, trying to grab onto his business card as it was being kicked around by the scuffle.

At one point, Juno had picked it up, jabbing her heel into his had. Beetlejuice howled. Lydia reaches up and grabbed onto one end of the card, pulling back against Juno.

“It’s his!! Give it back!” Lydia had cried, pulling against Juno with all her might. 

“Lawrence made a deal! You for the card! He doesn’t get to have both!” Juno snarled.

“His name! Is! BEETLEJUICE!!!” Lydia screamed back. 

An in an instant, the card tore in half. 

It was like the sound barrier had been broken. Like an explosion had gone off and sent a shock wave crashing inside his chest. It hurt so much. His card, it was ruined, it was gone, it —

Now Beetlejuice was on his knees, trying pathetically to put the two pieces back together. His eyes blurred over, red hot tears streaking down his face. It felt like he had lost a part of him. And he did. He really did. He couldn’t — he didn’t want to — this wasn’t supposed to happen. _God, why? Why? Why?_ He felt like he was going to be sick. His stomach flipped and twisted in unholy, uncomfortable ways. As if he had swallowed a whole gallon of holy water and was burning up from the inside out.

“Beetlejuice, we have to go!” Barbara’s hand was on his shoulder, but he barely registered it. Looking up, he saw Charles carrying Lydia towards the door. Although the teenager kicked and hit his back with her small fists, looking more than ready to continue fighting the literal demon in front of her. 

Beetlejuice looked down at his card, clutching it tightly to his chest. “I - “ He sniffed, tears tumbling down his cheeks. "Barbara, my -"

“I know, I know.” Barbara reassured. “But we have it, see?” She placed her hands over his, pushing the two sides of the card together. “We can fix it, but we have to leave.” 

Beetlejuice snuffed, but nodded, trying to stand up despite his wobbly legs. He slipped the ripped pieces of his card inside his jacket pocket, using his now free hands to grab onto Barbara’s arm. With a bit of effort he managed to stand up. The demon looked around, spotting Adam near the door of the office, shouting at them to hurry through.

A shrill growl brought his attention back to his mother, who did NOT look happy at all. Her hair was disheveled, her eyes were a piercing red, and she looked angrier than the devil himself. Grabbing the letter opener on her desk, Juno lurched forward towards Adam. (Quite a feat for an old, chain smoking ghost in heels.) 

Barbara called out for her husband, Adam covered his face in an attempt to shield himself.

Before Juno could make it to her target, Beetlejuice had slammed into her, pinning her up and against the wall of her office. Because no. Not Adam. She didn't DARE lay a finger on Adam. He wouldn't let her. The letter opener fell to the floor with a clatter. His hands clutched tightly the the material of her jacket and shirt, his sharp claws almost digging into her rotten skin. His other hand was pulled back, nails fully extended and ready to slash into his mother’s face. But he didn’t move. Mother. She was still his mother. He wasn’t afraid of her, not like he used to be, but he still couldn’t do it. He didn’t know why, maybe one day he would find out. But he couldn’t.

“Lawrence!” Juno’s shrill voice broke through his thoughts. In the reflection of her glasses, he saw his hair had returned to an angry, fiery red. “Get your ungrateful hands off me!”

“My name is BEETLEJUICE!” The demon snapped at her, his voice reverberating off the walls of her office, causing the furniture to rattle and a bottle of alcohol to topple off the desk and shatter on the floor. “And I don’t **_ever_** want to see you, or have you come near me or my family again.” With that he let her go, letting her fall to her knees, and, very unceremoniously, practically ran out of the room, tugging the suddenly stunned Adam and Barbara behind him before slamming the door with his foot.

The carry of weight shifted as Beetlejuice’s legs began to crumple out from underneath him. Adam slung one of the demon’s arm’s over his shoulder while Barbara held tightly to his other hand. He yelled at his mom. He yelled at his mom. He was going to be in so much trouble. 

They rushed passed Ms. Argentina’s desk, Delia quickly followed after them. Charles stood at the door, Lydia still held tightly in his arms as the group rushed toward him. The newly deceased in the waiting room didn’t regard them with more than a sideways glance. They were dead. They’d already seen enough weird things in the last week. 

The makeshift family ran through the door, past the black and white spirals and the thick green smoke. They ran until the dark tunnel merged into the threshold of their living room. They broke through, tumbling out into their house in a very unceremonious manner. Charles quickly set down Lydia and moved to close the door, Delia right beside him to help. 

Beetlejuice fell to his knees, pawing at the ground until he found the waste paper basket nearby. All the terrible, hurt, twisted emotions swimming around in his stomach cake hurling up through his throat. It wasn’t anything funny looking like the Poltergeist kind of projectile vomit. It looked more sad, more normal. He just needed to get rid of every horrible feeling that had crept its way into his body. 

A small hand met his back.

Lydia.

But this time, he didn’t flinch at her touch. 

Because Lydia wasn't going to hurt him. Not now. Lydia was safe.

She held him until he was finished, coughing and wiping his nose with his sleeve. Beetlejuice turned to her, looking at her expression. Her eyes were misty, her mouth turned down into a frown, and her brows were knotted together with concern. 

It said more than what she opened her mouth to say, which was “Beetlejuice ... I am so sorry.” 

The dam broke. Beetlejuice dug into his jacket pocket as tears welled up in his eyes. He looked over the poor card, torn into two pathetic pieces the way his heart felt. 

Maybe a few months ago, he would’ve blamed Lydia for this. He would’ve said it was her fault. She tore his card just as much as his mother did. He would say that it was always Lydia’s fault. She always ruined things for him. Being summoned, being alive, being dead again. But no. It wasn’t Lydia’s fault. She hadn’t meant for things to turn out this way. She was his friend. She wouldn’t do this on purpose.

It wasn’t his fault either, he realized. He had to stop blaming himself for things his mother did to him. He didn’t deserve it. It wasn’t fair. He wanted his card and his mother ruined everything. 

Lydia reached over and wrapped her arms around him, mentally dragging the demon away from whatever poor thoughts were beginning to plague his mind. Charles and Delia knelt beside her, then Barbara and Adam come around to his other side, their soft hands resting on his hair and neck, grounding him to the present.

“Sorry.” Lydia mumbled.

“You don’t have to say sorry. Wasn’t your fault.” Beetlejuice replied, his voice almost as soft as hers. “My mom’s fault. No one else’s. Don’t you go trying to take credit.” He smiled, reaching up a hand to ruffle Lydia’s dark locks into a bunch.

Lydia giggled. She raised a hand and took his hand, the one that held onto the broken card. “We can tape it, if you want?”

“Yeah. Maybe.” Beetlejuice nodded, looking to where their hands intersected. “I think something like that would be nice.”

“I have plenty of scrap bookings supplies if you two want any.” Delia offered, and Lydia gave her a small thank you in return.

Charles stood up, helping Delia to her feet a moment later. They said something about making tea to calm everyone down and retreated into the kitchen. 

“Beetlejuice?” Adam moved so that he was in front of the green-haired demon, drawing his eyesight up from the broken card. “I Uh - wanted to ask you something.”

“Uh, sure?” Beetlejuice raised an eyebrow, shifting his weight to be a bit more comfortable where he sat.

“What is —“ Adam paused, watching Barbara come around to be next to him. “What’s your name?”

The demon blinked before giving a very unamused facial expression towards the ghost couple. 

“Really?” He groaned, crossing his arms over his chest. “I finally calm down and you two are gonna make me feel bad about not being able to say my n-“

Beetlejuice’s eyes shot open like he had woken up from a dream. Realization of what he said to his mother hit him like a double decker bus.

“Wait. Wait! Wait!” He scrambled to his feet, grabbing both Maitlands by the shoulders as he looked them right in the eye. “Did you !! Did you hear me say it!?!”

The beautiful ghosts only smiled back at him, almost looking mischievous. (Which was incredibly adorable and Beetlejuice would’ve been focusing more on that had it been literally any other time).

“The card? You mean when it ripped-? You mean I-?” Beetlejuice grabbed the card from Lydia, holding it up in front of his face.

“What? Wait? Someone tell me what’s going on?” Lydia asked, picking herself off the floor to look between the dead individuals in her living room.

“I could’ve ripped it up this whole time!??” Beetlejuice smacked himself in the forehead, dragging his hand all the way down his face. 

“Beetlejuice, what is it? What about your card?” Lydia asked, tugging on her friend’s sleeve like an impatient child.

Beetlejuice let the card drop. He grabbed onto Lydia’s hand with both of his hands before shaking it up and down.

“Hi!” Beetlejuice said with the biggest, salesman like smile he could manage. “I’ll be your guide! My name is Beetlejuice!”

Lydia blinked up at him in surprise.

“My name — my name is Beetlejuice!” The tears that had been there before came back, but they weren’t hot or uncomfortable like they were before. They weren’t choking him or making his stomach turn. 

Nothing was hurting! Nothing was constricting his chest! Nothing was squeezing his throat! Nothing was stopping him from saying his own name!

He was still dead. He could feel that. He still had his silly, mischief making powers. But nothing **_HURT._**

“I’m Beetlejuice!” He repeated again to Lydia before lifting his head to the Maitlands. The demon pushed past Lydia to get to them. Finally! Finally! He could introduce himself!!

“Hiya, hot stuff!!” He went to Adam first, wrapping his arms around the ghost to pin his arms to his side. “The name’s Beetlejuice!” The demon dipped Adam, placing a big pushing kiss against the ghost’s lips. There wasn’t a push away though, in fact, Adam was laughing when Beetlejuice set him back on his feet.

“Hahaha! Nice to meet you Mr. Beetlejuice!” Adam’s nerdy smile spread across his face as he adjusted his glasses.

“And _hellloooooo_ to you, beautiful! My name’s Beetlejuice!” Beetlejuice did the same to Barbara, pressing his lips to hers as he swept her off her feet. Though, a bit messier since Barbara couldn’t stop laughing.

“What’s going on in here?” Charles leaned in from the kitchen to see what the commotion was about.

“Chuck!!” Beetlejuice ran over, grabbing the man’s hand and shaking it violently up and down. “Hi!! My name’s Beetlejuice! Nice to meet ya!” He said before leaning into the kitchen where Delia was, blinking at him owlishly. “Nice to meet you too! Hahaha!” The demon let go, rushing back into the living room, looking as if he didn’t have a care in the world. 

“Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice!” He said it himself! Was it always that fun to say?! No wonder Lydia did it so many times. The demon pressed his hands on the floor, teetering himself into a cartwheel as he paraded himself around the house. 

“Beetlejuice!” This time his name was said by Lydia. He turned, watching as she opened the front door of the house.

_Outside._

Without a second thought, Beetlejuice bolted for it.

“Oh! Wait!” Barbara’s voice was completely ignored as the demon ran out on the front porch, stumbled down the steps and practically threw himself onto the perfect grass of the front lawn.

“Yes!! Yes!! Haha haha!!!” Beetlejuice rolled himself onto his back, clumps of grass balled in his hands.

Lydia joined him, flopping her stomach over his as he laid there.

“Grass stains!” Charles shouted from the front door, but he was drowned out by Beetlejuice and Lydia’s laughter.

“So, how does freedom feel?” Lydia asked, propping her elbows up on his stomach as she peered down at him.

“Feels freaking fantastic.” Beetlejuice giggled.

“Oooh, alliteration. You really are back to your old self.”

“Hopefully not too old.” Beetlejuice pointed out. He lifted a hand, letting the stands of grass float away in the wind. “Beetlejuice.”

“That’s your name.”

_“That is my name.”_

-

The Deetz’ fridge had been covered with photos held up by magnets. 

One of two bedsheets floating in the air with no feet. One of Lydia presenting her photographs at a school gallery. One of Charles and Delia on their wedding day, dressed in black and white. One of Lydia and Beetlejuice (now visible) as they huddled inside a pillow fort filled with snacks. One of Emily Deetz and a smaller Lydia walking in a flower field. One of the whole family on the couch, with Adam and Barbara caked in makeup to allow themselves to be seen by the camera’s lens.

Bellow all of those, there was a new card, held up by a black and white striped magnet. 

The handwriting was kinder. And one could tell upon looking at it, that whoever wrote it did it with care and a delicate hand. In kind, calligraphy writing, in green ink, it read three words.

_Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wowie! Talk about an adventure! I can't believe this started out as a little drabble I made after seeing the show on Broadway. It feels like so much has happened since then, and it really has! Your comments and kudos have really kept me motivated in finishing this fic. And even though this chapter took a while to write, I'm glad I could finally finish this off with a satisfying ending. 
> 
> You guys have been incredibly kind and patient with me! So thank you so much for coming on this writing journey with me! I'm glad I could make so many people happy with this fic!


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